Minicon Dawn
by isoner
Summary: Chapter 10. Conclusion but not really the end to the story.
1. Beast Wars

Disclaimer: I do not own any of the rights to Transformers or any of the characters included in this story.  
  
It is something of a bizarre crossover idea that came to me rudely in the night. At the moment it is a one shot, but that could change depending on the amount of response I get from it.  
  
Transformers: Minicon Dawn  
  
Tarantulas entered his lair through one of his many hidden passages, which like all the others was designed to allow him to enter the lab without anyone knowing where he had come from, including any who happened to be in his lair at the time, which was fortunate as Tarantulas had not expected to see Megatron hovering over his equipment. "Megatron?! What are you doing in my lai-er-Lab?"  
  
"Ah, Tarantulas, you have returned. I required your equipment, your lab is more advanced than Scorponok's"  
  
Tarantulas failed to suppress a snicker. "Thank you, Megatron. Anything I can do to help?"  
  
Megatron thought for a moment, was it worth the risk of letting the arachnid know about his recent discovery? Tarantulas was far from trustworthy, but on the other hand the technology he was looking at was well beyond anything he knew, if Tarantulas could figure out some way to make use of it, even in a traitorous way Megatron was sure he would be able to turn it to his own advantage. "Yes. Take a look at this, I found it while I was out looking for salvage. It is obviously some form of Transformer technology, but it did not come from our craft."  
  
"Hmmm?" Tarantulas' interest was suddenly piqued. "Certainly Megatron," he said as he almost rudely pushed Megatron out of the way to get a better look at the "artifact" that Megatron had found. It was a green plate a little larger in size than his head, and it had a stylized 'M' imprinted on one side. "hmmm. yes. it is definitely Transformer in origin, but I have never seen this level of technology before."  
  
Megatron fixed his face with a false grin while he watched Tarantulas work. It was the expression he used to say, 'I'm being polite by pretending to be stupid.'  
  
Tarantulas was too fixated on his instruments to notice. "The energy readings are zero. but the time flux around it indicates it is from this time frame, so it is not from the future like we are."  
  
"Fascinating, yes." Megatron said while waiting for Tarantulas to discover something he had not.  
  
"And yet it has been through a space warp. recently, say within the last 50 to a hundred years."  
  
Megatron maintained his polite face.  
  
"But what is it." Tarantulas said to himself while adjusting his sensor equipment, and absentmindedly activated a few hidden features in them that Megatron had not known about before. Excitedly Tarantulas shouted, "Do you know what this is?"  
  
"A highly advanced Cybertronian dinner plate?"  
  
Tarantulas was too excited to notice the sarcasm. "No, for lack of a better term, it's a Stasis Pod."  
  
This was news, showing it to the arachnid had paid off after all. "You mean to tell me that there is a protoform hidden inside that little plate?"  
  
"No, not a protoform, but a fully developed Transformer of an unknown type. There is a ghosted circuitry image of the Transformer inside visible on what appears to be some sort of matter projection system. Apparent vehicle transformation, and it looks like the size is a bit smaller than us." Tarantulas cursed his luck, Megatron had indeed found the find of a lifetime, if only he could find some way to get it back to the Tripedicus Council. Unfortunately it would be impossible to figure out exactly how any of it worked until the plate had repaired itself enough to be able to operate.  
  
Interesting, Megatron thought. A small transformer of unknown type. Not Autobot, Maximal, Decepticon, or Predicon. but something else entirely and stored in long term stasis sleep in a preset condition. That level of technology was well in advanced of their own.  
  
Tarantulas continued, "No sign of organic sensors, at all. interesting. Based on the Transformation mode circuitry I am scanning in this thing, this Transformer is incapable of achieving an exact match of the target. When our race of Transformers select a vehicle or animal for an alt mode, we can completely reconfigure to become an exact match of that vehicle or beast, but from the looks of it the best this type of Transformer can do is reconfigure its existing parts to come as close to the target mode as possible, but cannot duplicate it exactly."  
  
"Interesting, yes. An unknown race of Transformers, vastly more advanced than us in some respects, since they already have Warp technology and this unique form of Stasis Pod, but primitive in other respects."  
  
"What does it mean, Megatron?"  
  
What did Tarantulas hope to gain by asking him that, Megatron wondered. was he genuinely interested in his opinion, or did he just want to know how much Megatron knew? He may as well give Tarantulas his opinion.  
  
"How much do you know about Transformer history?" Megatron asked.  
  
The laugh that Tarantulas gave told Megatron that the next thing he was about to hear would be a half truth at best. "Only what every Predicon learns in Basic Programming."  
  
"Hmmm. yes. Well, even the earliest recorded history of our planet and its great wars between the Autobots and Decepticons make references to Transformers escaping into space in an effort to avoid the coming conflicts. Over the history of our Cybertron there must have been several migrations off world. In fact a select few claim that our Cybertron was settled by immigrants form the True Cybertron. Yet in all our years of space exploration we have never found any of them."  
  
"That's not true, Megatron." Tarantulas said, "There was the Autobot colony that had been wiped out by Cosmic Rust, the Junkion colony on Junk, that world inhabited entirely by Insecticons, rumors of a micromaster colony of the world of Master."  
  
"Yes but we know when and where each of those colonies was founded. Their have to be more, even if Unicron found and eliminated some, even he could not have gotten them all. I believe that this is a relic from one of those other Transformer Colonies. The data druids at the Furman archive insist that our evolution has been controlled and limited by Primus, and claim that is why we were unable to grow as a race until after the defeat of Unicron. It was not until after the fall of Unicron that our race of Transformers developed the organic blending technology that first came with Pretenders, or the MicroMaster Technology that in turn spawned Maximal and Predicon. And now some four million years before our world even begins to fathom the idea of MicroMasters, we find a primitive MicroMaster in a super advanced Stasis Pod. While this Transformer grew and evolved independently and away from the influences we had, it is only natural the tech levels would be slightly skewed, yes. I wonder if there is a Megatron on it's home world too?"  
  
"An interesting. Theory, Megatron."  
  
"Only it," Megatron gestured to the green plate, "has the answers to confirm my theory. Can you activate it?"  
  
Tarantulas suddenly looked crestfallen. "I'm afraid not. It was critically damaged when it crash landed on this planet, and then the strong energon fields did even more damage, almost every circuit in this thing has been damaged or fried."  
  
"Then its dead?"  
  
"No, Megatron, not quiet. I can just barely detect auto repair systems activating within it. It will take it a long time, but it will eventually repair itself enough to activate."  
  
"When the Ark crash-landed on Earth it took four million years of self repair processes to repair the Transformers within enough to come online. How long will it take that. Thing to repair itself enough to activate?"  
  
"Longer."  
  
"How much longer?"  
  
"At least a thousand years longer."  
  
"Then they will be of no use to us."  
  
"I'm afraid not. But what will happen if the Maximals should find one?"  
  
Megatron lauged, "I don't think we have to worry, those buffoons don't even know what planet they are on, I'm pretty sure they wont be able to uncover any secrets in these green plates."  
  
Megatron snatched the plate from Tarantulas, and turned to return to his private chambers, when a thought occurred to him. "Tarantulas, by the time these things repair themselves enough to activate, won't they be entombed by millions of years of dirt?"  
  
"No, Megatron, they are designed with microscopic arms around the sides that, when activated, will slowly dig the plate towards the surface. It really is quite ingénues."  
  
Megatron deposited the plate in his private safe, he would keep a close eye on this green plate in the future, he would guard it as if it were another golden disk. And by keeping it in the safe it would be extra safe from the excessive Energon buildup outside. Maybe that will take a few million years off the repair time of this particular transformer.  
  
Once the plate was secured, Megatron headed outside. He knew there were more of these green plates around, although none were in the area where he or the Maximals had crashed, but they had to come from somewhere, and Megatron did not intend to rest until he found what had brought them. But to do that, he needed a ship.  
  
His own ship would never fly again, and he didn't have much hope that the Maximal's ship was in much better shape. The insecticons would not crash- land for a few thousand more years, he doubted Skyfire would be willing to help him, and that left only one other ship that might be able to fly. Megatron headed for the Ark.  
  
It took him longer to dig his way into the Ark's cave than he thought, and he had managed to hurt himself in the process. No matter. The Ark lay before him for the first time ever. He could not help to be awed by its presence.  
  
He accessed the golden disk for the Ark entry codes that granted him access to the ship.  
  
He had forgotten how. large the old energon guzzling Autobots and Decepticons had been. The controls were too far apart; he would not be able to fly Ark himself. There had to be a way.  
  
For just a moment, he considered ending the war now, with one well placed shot to the head of Optimus Prime. but no. there was no way to ensure he would still exist if he took such an action. That would be his desperation move if all else failed.  
  
Instead he made a through search of the ark. He was considering an attempt to activate one of the Decepticon Jets and making him fly him when he found it. It wasn't on any of the history documents, but there it was, an Autobot shuttle. He would be able to fly that quite easily. He would make a note to add the data about the shuttle to his predicon files once he returned to base.  
  
On a hunch, Megatron decided to fly over the moons first. He found it fairly easily on the dark side of the smaller moon, where no human would ever set foot in recorded history. A large wreck, that looked like it may have been kin to the old Junkion space cruisers. Maybe some of these ships would find their way to Junk to be used by the Junkions against Unicron.  
  
Thinking about it made his head hurt.  
  
Megaton set the shuttle down and began his exploration.  
  
As hard as it was to believe, this ship was in even worse condition than his own. It also appeared that part of the forward crew compartments had not landed on the moon, but may have made it to the Earth even without the rest of the ship attached. He would never know. There was nothing here he could use, just junk, and he needed to get back before he was missed by his troops.  
  
****  
  
In a distant future, it had been several hundred years since the last Transformer had been asked to leave Earth by the local governments. No one alive had ever seen one; few believed the Transformers had ever existed. Efforts had been taken to restore more green to the world, and make the new technologies smaller and harder to spot. Isolationism had again taken hold, cutting off trade with other worlds. And frankly, those other worlds really did not notice the lack of an Earth to do business with.  
  
A child accidentally activated a minicon, and the signal went out across the universe, and suddenly a small pitiful world would be unable to pretend it was the center of the universe any longer.  
  
****  
  
On Cybertron, the signal was received, and Autobots under the command of Optimus Prime and Decepticons led by Megatron leaped into action. They had every intention of responding to the call and capture the Minicons for themselves.  
  
****  
  
On a green, techno organic world, once known as Cybertron, the signal went almost unnoticed, as none of the inhabitance knew what to listen for. In a structure overgrown with techno organic weeds, that had once housed the Maximal Elders, and then had been Megatron's own base of operation when he had ruled Cybertron with hordes of Vehicons, the signal was heard. A green plate glowed and activated, revealing the Transformer within. 


	2. Beast Machines

Minicondawn2 Disclaimer: I do not own the rights to Transformers. they belong to whoever owns them.  
  
Note. Some names like SoundBlaster or Gigatron may be Transformer names from other series. but for purposes of this story, consider them bad Hasbro name reuses for the Beast Machine universe with no direct relationship to their more traditional incarnation.  
  
Chapter 2:  
  
It heard the signal, and awoke. The Minicon plate glowed green and automatically sent an acknowledgement to the signal. Its reply was too weak to be received, but it did not know to take that much distance into account. It projected the recorded robot structure upwards and then warped the stored matter into place, restoring the long dormant minicon to life.  
  
The minicon stood a moment and looked around the blackness that surrounded it. Finally it activated a spotlight to illuminate the room.  
  
It was in a box, smooth formless metal on all sides, including above and below. It experienced a flash of panic, before calming back down.  
  
In order to get out, rational thinking would be needed. It tried pushing on each of the walls, hoping one would push open.  
  
It didn't work.  
  
Panic set in, and the Minicon began throwing itself against the nearest wall, desperate to escape.  
  
****  
  
Rattrap very quietly rolled home in the early hours of the morning. He wanted nothing more than to crawl into bed and catch up on the cycles of sleep he had been too busy to get during the night. Too busy partying, that was. And the one thing he did not want to deal with was Botanica. She would just yell at him again, and he didn't have a good story to tell her. He had already really over used the excuse about needing to party in the face of victory; and she didn't really buy it the first time.  
  
She would certainly blow a leaf if she knew he had spent the entire night talking about old times with an old drinking buddy. Actually she was more of a server than a buddy, and her new techno organic body looked a lot nicer without her torso plates than her old one. There was definitely something attractive about those organic curves.  
  
Of course plant curves were rather nice too, he instinctively thought as he caught a glimpse of her pacing in the next room. Well. he might as well get it over with.  
  
"Uh. Honey pot. I'm, uh, home."  
  
She turned suddenly, causing him to flinch. She was obviously furious, and agitated. Or maybe agitated, and not so furious? He just didn't know how she thought some days.  
  
"There you are," she spat, "Its about time you got home. I'm getting some strange reports, I need you to go investigate the old citadel right away?"  
  
"But-but-I was really hoping to catch some 'Z's. I was up kinda late, you know."  
  
"Yes. I DO know. So, if you don't want to answer a lot of incriminating questions, you will go and investigate the Citadel where the Maximal Elders once led Cybertron before Megatron and the great Reformatting." At that moment, Rattrap knew that if Botanica had laser vision, he would be little more than slagged carbon.  
  
"Yes, Dear. As you wish my Sweet," Rattrap uttered, while kicking his robot mode wheels into overdrive. The dust trail he left behind him slowly settled over the sereneness of their private orchard.  
  
****  
  
Once again Cheetor asked himself what had happened to make people look to him as a leader. Those few moments he had enough free time to dwell on it, he felt insecure. Most of the time he was too busy making decisions that was slowly rebuilding the society of Cybertron. He looked forward to reestablishing some form of the Convoy Council of Maximal Elders, or maybe reestablish the Emmerates to rule things. He had assumed that once all the sparks were restored, the Maximal Elders would once again take their place as leaders of Cybertron, but it wasn't as simple as that. Some of the old Transformer bodies had remained intact, but most of them had been destroyed or used for spare parts for Vehicons, the sparks that would have gone into those bodies lost bodies had apparently been born anew, with completely new personalities and no prior memories. Apparently the Elders and the Tripedicus council had been among the destroyed bodies. Megatron certainly could carry a grudge to extremes.  
  
Aside from that, Cheetor's biggest disappointment was the restoration of Six Lasers Over Cybertron. all the old rides were still there, but the old hover coasters just didn't work the same now that they were partly organic. It had become more of a forest. The architects were trying to devise new ways to create good rides with the new technology, but Cheetor was afraid that by the time they finished he would be too deep in work to ever make it to the park again.  
  
Soundblaster greeted Cheetor as he drew near. Soundblaster was rather tall with a mostly blue color, but no one was sure what he would transform into now that he was techno organic. Apparently Soundblaster was one of the older Transformers and was having a harder time than most achieving the serene concentration needed to transform into his alt mode. He didn't seem to mind staying in robot mode, fortunately. Guess it made a difference that his base mode was his robot mode. Cheetor's base mode was his cheetah form, and it drove him crazy until he finally mastered transforming into his robot mode.  
  
"What do you have for me?" Cheetor asked.  
  
"I picked up this strange signal from Earth." Soundblaster answered.  
  
"Earth? I thought they had forgotten all about us."  
  
"It was not directed at us, it seems to have been a universal SOS call from a ship that crashed there a few million years ago."  
  
"That is one slow signal, radio waves?"  
  
"No. It was a Transwarp signal, a Transformer signal."  
  
"That is odd. I didn't think there were any Transformers left on Earth. I suppose-"  
  
"That's not the strangest part," Soundblaster interrupted. "You see, someone in the old Citadel acknowledged it."  
  
That was strange. Since the Great Reformatting, none of the Transformers on Cybertron had been able to properly communicate between with machinery. With each other and other Techno organic forms, yes, but only Soundblaster had been able to fine-tune his inner scanners to again be able to receive and respond to non-techno organic signals. For someone to be able to acknowledge such a signal meant either someone else had regained the ability, someone had built an illegal transmitter, or there was an alien at the Citadel.  
  
"Ok. Send someone to the space port to see if we can get a ship space worthy, and Ill send someone to check out the Citadel."  
  
Soundblaster walked off to find someone to send to the space port. Well, the ability to send other people to do stuff was a slight advantage to having everyone treat you like a Prime.  
  
Now he needed to send someone to the Citadel. Nightscream and Rattrap would be a good team for that. Why did he always go back to his old friends for the important jobs, he wondered. He went to the communicator on the wall and punched up Nightscream, whose image appeared in the semi organic ooze that was the viewscreen.  
  
"Whats up top cat?" The bat on the screen asked.  
  
"There may be an alien hiding out at the Citadel, I need you and Rattrap to go and check it out."  
  
"Sure thing." Nightscream answered and broke the connection.  
  
Next Cheetor dialed up Rattrap's home. Instead of Rattrap, Botanica answered the line. "Hey, Botanica. Is Rattrap around? I need him for a mission."  
  
"I have already sent him on a mission, Cheetor, perhaps when he gets back from the Citadel."  
  
"The Citadel? That was where I was sending him. why have you sent him there?"  
  
"I am getting strange reports from the plants in that area, and someone needed to investigate."  
  
"What sort of reports did the plants give you? And why didn't you tell me about them?"  
  
"Face it, Cheetor. A lot of your 'Command Staff' are not use to being partly organic themselves. They have made it perfectly clear they do not approve of the 'mumbo jumbo of some plant woman.'"  
  
Cheetor scowled. "We should discuss that later. No one on my staff is going to talk that way about one of my friends, much less a hero of Cybertron." Cheetor broke the connection and walked angrily through the command base. He growled angrily at his lieutenant, Wired, as he passed.  
  
****  
  
"Hey Rattrap, hows it been?" Nightscream called down as he flew over his old friends head.  
  
"Nightscream! What are you doing here?"  
  
"Cheetor wanted us to check out the old Citadel in case some alien is hiding out there."  
  
"An alien? Aw, man. she knew. She really does want to kill me for staying out late. Ohhh. We're gonna die."  
  
"Chill out rat-face. It will be a piece of cake compared to the old days."  
  
"Cool it with the names, Leonardo! I have been up all night and am just not in the mood," Rattrap said as they drew near the Citadel, overgrown with weeds that were not entirely easy to see since they blended in with the now semi-organic walls.  
  
It took them a few moments to locate the door, which hung open. "Wait, stop," Nightscream whispered, as he landed in his robot mode. "I hear something."  
  
Rattrap fell back into his rat beast mode and sniffed the air. "Well, if that isn't the sweetest smell, its oil. I smell Transformer lubrication oil!"  
  
"Wait! Don't rush in, we don't know if it's friendly. And it doesn't necessarily know that we are friendly. All we know is that it's a Transformer."  
  
"Doesn't that mean we should go introduce ourselves then?"  
  
"Yes, but slowly. We don't exactly look like the Transformers it is likely to remember."  
  
"Well, I suppose you got a point there," Rattrap admitted. "But you gotta admit, we would look a little more like Transformers if you would give in and get a haircut."  
  
"Hey, I thought we weren't going to rag on each other!"  
  
"Eh. No. I just said no name-calling. Anyway what do did you hear?"  
  
"Gears mostly. Coming from inside, of course," Nightscream answered.  
  
"I guess that means we have to go inside then."  
  
The two Transformers, now both in robot mode, pulled the techno vines aside and tiptoed into the Citadel. It was brighter than they had remembered it being. The inside of the grand building was lit by glowing florescent flowers that were blooming on weeds that had managed to take root inside the building.  
  
Nightscream turned to Rattrap and asked, "So, where should we check first?"  
  
"Well, lets start with the scariest places first," Rattrap answered, then together they both finished the sentence. "Megatron's throne room."  
  
Slowly, they crept into the old throne room, parts of Megatron's command harness still littered the floor, along with what might have been parts of Tankor.  
  
"Well. Nobody is here." Rattrap said with more hope than conviction in his voice.  
  
"Yeah, but look," Nightscream said, pointing to a fresh hole in the wall. "looks like something got into Megatron's safe."  
  
Rattrap rolled over to examine the fresh hole in the wall. "Nope. Worse, something got out of Megatron's safe."  
  
"Should we ask Cheetor to send us some reinforcements?"  
  
"For what, we still haven't seen anything. I bet its long gone from here by now."  
  
Nightscream transformed into his bat beast mode, and flew to the top of the room, circling the perimeter.  
  
"Woah!" Rattrap shouted as Nightscream suddenly made an attack dive. Losing concentration, Rattrap fell into his Rat mode, and instinctively covered his audio receptors as Nightscream's sonic scream flooded the chamber.  
  
Rattrap opened his eyes to see Nightscream standing over a fallen figure.  
  
****  
  
"Ah, my beloved, you know that I would do anything for you." Silverbolt began in his usually pretentious manner. "But why do you want me to attend this rally?"  
  
"Aw, come on, Bone. I have been hearing a lot about this guy, I think he has a lot of good ideas. Besides, it can't hurt to just listen, can it?"  
  
"Hmmmm." Silverbolt said, not sounding convinced. Logic said that Black Arachnia was right, but still, something felt. off.  
  
"I know what is bothering you, but don't worry. We are a single balanced people now, no Decepticons or Predicons, or Autobot or even Maximal. We are all just Transformers, with good and evil in each of us."  
  
"Yes, my Beloved, but not necessarily good and evil in equal measure. At least let us sit near the back so we can make a discreet exit if the mood should strike us?"  
  
"Ok, ok." Black Arachnia gave in to the compromise.  
  
The auditorium was already filling to capacity, with hundreds of Transformers of various sizes making their way in and vying for seats. Apparently this guy was good at attracting crowds.  
  
Silverbolt's head turned sharply. He could have sworn he had recognized someone in the crowd that simply could not be there. No way. Totally impossible. "Excuse me, Beloved, I shall return in a cycle."  
  
Silverbolt made his way through the crowd, trying to catch up with the impossible face. finally he caught up with him. "Dinobot?"  
  
The figure turned at the name. It was definitely Dinobot. He snarled. "What do you want?"  
  
"Its me, Silverbolt. I know my appearance has changed somewhat, but we fought together in the Beast Wars."  
  
"Ha, you are deranged," the techno organic Dinobot answered. "I have never seen you before, I only recently came online. I certainly bare no resemblance to the traitor you so fondly remember." Dinobot turned his back on Silverbolt, and immediately lost himself within the crowd.  
  
"What is it?" Black Arachnia asked when she saw Silverbolt's troubled face.  
  
"It was. Dinobot," Silverbolt answered.  
  
"Dinobot?!? He must have more lives than Optimus."  
  
"It was his face, his voice, even the meaner aspects of his personality. but he didn't know me."  
  
"He must have been reborn when Cybertron was reformatted by Optimus."  
  
"But none of the other sparks from those who had died came back whole, if anything they came back as completely new Transformers," Silverbolt said.  
  
"It must have been Optimus. he is part of the Oracle now. or is the Oracle him?"  
  
"But why Dinobot? Does that mean that somewhere there is a Rhinox or Depthcharge that just doesn't remember?"  
  
"Maybe." Black Arachnia answered. "Or maybe it was Megatron, he is also part of Cybertron and the Oracle, it could have been a last sick joke of his to restore Dinobot without his more heroic traits."  
  
"We should mention this to Cheetor later then. But for now. I believe the guest of honor has arrived."  
  
A large black colored Transformer took the center stage, holding his hands up in a vain attempt to quiet the applause. He smiled and gave up for a few mili-cycles, then raised his hands to silence the crowd again. The second time the crowd did quiet down.  
  
"Welcome, Cybertronians! Welcome, Friends! I am Gigatron. It has been several months since the Cheetor and the other Heroes of Cybertron liberated us from the soul prisons of the Vehicons. Indeed, we owe them all a great debt of gratitude for reviving us all after we fell victim to the viral plague. but does that automatically mean they are Gods, fit to rule us? Their method of victory has robed many of you of the ability to Transform." There was a rumble of discontent in the crowd.  
  
"What good is a Transformer that cannot Transform, I ask you?!?" Gigatron asked the crowd. "We should be striving for greatness! Instead our self appointed leaders are taking their time, meditating on the new nature of our existence, while most of us are now without housing, or the ability to grow homes for ourselves, while in the old days we would simply build a new dwelling out of good old fashioned and durable metal. Our leaders should be seeing to the needs of our people, not soul searching or growing orchards.  
  
"I'm not saying we should do anything rash. I love and value peace as much as the next Cybertronian, but the time is coming when we will have no choice but to demand that our leaders stop neglecting the peoples needs! And if our self appointed leaders fail to heed our warnings, then we may need to appoint new leadership that will!  
  
"I have been working with a few others to come up with a detailed plan for a future that will allow all of us to prosper."  
  
"He is right," Silverbolt whispered to Black Arachnia, "we have been neglecting the needs of the people. There is much to what Gigatron says."  
  
Black Arachnia turned her head to Silverbolt with a look of disbelief on her face. She could not believe he was dumb enough to fall for the meaningless propaganda Gigatron was spouting. It actually reminded her way too much of Megatron's speeches, or the rallying speeches of the early days of the Decepticons. Well, she always knew that Silverbolt was a naive moron.  
  
****  
  
Cheetor was having the dream again. He hoped it would be different this time. Dreaming of Unicron could not be a good sign. Legend had it that Unicron had finally and ultimately been defeated by Rodimus Prime long before Maximals ever came into being.  
  
The dream began the way his old one did, with Rhinox explaining about Sparks. Then Rhinox collapsed into his own Spark, which died out. The universe shed a tear. Then the burnt out spark joined the Matrix of Leadership where the spark returned to the All-Spark. But not the Oracle.  
  
Cheetor wondered what happened to the Oracle?  
  
"The Oracle is gone," a voice answered. The voice was actually two voices. Megatron and Optimus, not speaking together, but speaking as one entity. "The Oracle was all that remained of this Cybertron's Primus after he fought Unicron."  
  
"Now that Unicron is gone, our story is done, and a new format was required. We are good and evil, the ultimate Yen and Yang. Every good must have an evil. without Unicron a new Balance needed to be formed. We are that Balance. We are Cybertron."  
  
Are you Optimus or Megatron? Is it over?  
  
"It is never over." The voice replied. "Over the eons, Cybertronians would leave their world to colonize another. In order to maintain the Balance, each of these worlds took their own Matrix with them. Each Matrix is Primus. For every Primus, there is Unicron to maintain the Balance."  
  
So, how do Qunitessons fit into the equation?  
  
"Each Matrix is joined to the All-Spark. We are all one, but each has their own test to complete against Chaos and destruction."  
  
Cheetor hated how Gods seemed to be able to ignore direct questions. What are you trying to tell me?  
  
"I am the Balance. Good and Evil. Organic and Technological. We must all find our own balance."  
  
Are you telling me not to get involved with other Transformers? That there is another Unicron and I should not fight him?  
  
"Yes." This time the voice was just Megatrons.  
  
I love you like a father Optimus, as much as I hate Megatron, but I will not worship you, individually or together. I will follow my own vision of right and wrong, where ever that may take me.  
  
"Yes." Said Optimus.  
  
Then together the voices said, "There is Balance, but the struggle continues."  
  
Cheetor woke with a start.  
  
****  
  
"Well," Rattrap said, "He was obviously in there for a while, so I wonder how come he didn't get reformatted with everything else on the planet? At least you didn't kill him."  
  
"Sorry," Nightscream answered. "He kinda surprised me there."  
  
"Ha-ha. Not as much as you surprised him! I wonder what his name is?"  
  
"And what does he transform into?"  
  
"Yeah, that is a good question. Something normal I hope. Ever since we all got Reformatted, the vehicle modes look like something from Jason and the Wheeled Warriors. Plants were never meant to be cars."  
  
"That looks like some sort of access port on his chest, doesn't it Rattrap?"  
  
"Yeah, your right kid. Guess Ill plug in, and see if I can revive him that way." Rattrap brought his tail around and plugged it into the access port on the Minicon's chest.  
  
Rattrap felt he was on fire, as massive amounts of energy fed back into him through his tail. He screamed.  
  
As soon as he could think again, Nightscream yanked Rattrap's tail out of the port. Rattrap collapsed to the floor, while Nightscream sighed. He would just have to wait until one of them woke up.  
  
****  
  
"Cheetor?" Wired asked.  
  
"Yeah, what is it?"  
  
"We found a few ships that are space worthy. We are getting one fueled now. Where are you going?"  
  
"Earth. We are going to answer that distress call." Cheetor answered.  
  
"But, why? What does it have to do with us? Don't we have enough problems of our own here without worrying about some other planet?"  
  
Cheetor turned with a growl and glared at Wired. "Our concern is for everyone's well being, no matter where they are. We will answer that distress call, and we will continue working on the housing and energy problems here too. If we have to we will dig down to the lost city of Iacon and house people there, but I would prefer to maintain the techno balance on Cybertron and grow housing naturally."  
  
Wired smiled in spite of himself. "Naturally, that's a good one."  
  
With another angry growl, Cheetor stormed out of the room.  
  
****  
  
Rattrap finally began moving, and Nightscream was relieved that it was his friend and not the Minicon who woke first.  
  
"Man, what is that thing, some kinda Powermaster?" Rattrap asked.  
  
"I don't know, but I think its starting to come around, also."  
  
The minicon emitted a few warbled beeps.  
  
"Doesn't it speak English?" Nightscream asked.  
  
Rattrap didn't answer; instead he picked a flower off the wall and held it over the Minicon to provide better lighting. The Minicon was about the same height as Rattrap, painted orange with gray highlights, and two gray pipes on his back. "Well, he doesn't have a gun, so lets help him up."  
  
The Minicon looked around dazed as they helped him to his feet, and emitted a few beeps that sounded like gratitude.  
  
"Yeah, uh. We are sorry about earlier. I'm Rattrap, and my excessively vocal friend here is Nightscream. We are Transformers too. we use to be Maximals but we don't use factions anymore." Rattrap pointed to the box stylized M on the Minicon's chest. "What is that symbol for? Oh, and what's your name?"  
  
Neither Rattrap or Nightscream could make heads or tails out of what they could only assume was speech.  
  
Rattrap looked up at the taller Nightscream. "You know the beeps Artoo here is making sounds a lot like the Binar language in that Star Trek Next Gen episode where the ship computer was reprogrammed and they stole the ship."  
  
"You never struck me as a trekkie."  
  
Rattrap turned back to the Minicon, "So, uh, would you be willing to let me download information from you? We seem to have a bit of a language barrier."  
  
He beeped and opened a small panel Rattrap had not noticed before. Rattrap plugged in with his tail. "woah."  
  
****  
  
"I think there is a problem, Cheetor." Black Arachnia began as soon as she found him. She grabbed his arm and began pulling him out into the hall, away from the rest of the command staff. "I went to a rally with Silverbolt to hear Gigatron speak. He is rallying the people against you. I think he wants to take over."  
  
"If he wants to be in charge let him. But anyway he can say whatever he wants."  
  
"Its not what he says that is the problem. its what he really wants that is the problem. He wants power. You can step aside and that wont be the end of it, he will only want more power and more control, and will take it from where ever he can. Idealy at the point of a gun, if you don't do something to stop him now."  
  
"Don't over react, BA. Its nothing, no one will take that kind of talk seriously."  
  
"Are you sure? Silverbolt sure is," Black Arachnia said with concern, but Cheetor wasn't taking it seriously. None of the Primes did, until it was too late. She may have to take matters into her own hands. She decided not to tell him about Dinobot until he was prepared to take things seriously. She would have continued to talk sense into him, but she was interrupted by the arrival of Rattrap, Nightscream and another, fully robotic transformer. She didn't think she would ever see another one of those.  
  
"Hey, Spots!" Rattrap called. "Allow me to introduce you to our new friend, Duster. And I believe you already know Nightscream. He is a Minicon from Cybertron, but I checked the star charts from his memory against ours. His Cybertron is a different one from ours. Apparently the Minicons escaped from Cybertron several million years ago, since Megatron picked this guy up during the Beast Wars. The funny thing is that the Minicons escaped to avoid their enslavement by both the Decepticons and Autobots, who use the Minicons as a sort of Powermaster."  
  
"Decepticons? That's a name I hoped never to hear again." Cheetor said.  
  
"That distress call was from their escape ship. Are we going to help them?" Nightscream asked.  
  
"Of course. A ship is already standing by. Botanica will stay here, but I want you three, myself and Silverbolt to go and investigate the situation, and see what help we can offer."  
  
****  
  
Rattrap and the others were waiting on the ship with Duster, waiting for Silverbolt who had still not arrived. Rattrap was acting as a translator between Duster and the other Transformers who were eager to learn as much as they could about the alternate Transformer culture and history. Cheetor seemed strangely uncomfortable or anxious, but Rattrap simply assumed that it was because the last time Cheetor had been on a ship, all hell had broken loose.  
  
Finally Silverbolt arrived, looking just as smug as usual. "I am sorry I was late, but lets go."  
  
"What kept you, Silverbolt?" Cheetor asked.  
  
"Well, I went down to Polyhex with Gigatron. I actually went to get a present for Rattrap. I know it bothers him that he has no offensive abilities, sooo. I got him this."  
  
Silverbolt threw an object to Rattrap.  
  
"Its. its, a gun! Just like my old one! I thought they had all been destroyed, lost or Reformatted into useless junk!"  
  
"Well, while looking for housing, Gigatron found a store of weapons, which he was eager to share with those who did not have the ability to defend themselves."  
  
Black Arachnia shot Cheetor an urgening look, which he deliberate ignored.  
  
"Lets go." Cheetor said.  
  
****  
  
"It is as you said, Gigatron," Dinobot said, "Cheetor and some of his most trusted advisors have indeed abandoned us to pursue some fool's errand."  
  
Gigatron stood next to him, the two of them gazing up at the jet trail as Cheetor's ship left for space. "Yes, this will help us to advance our cause."  
  
"Are you going to move NOW??"  
  
"No, Dinobot. It is far too early, but who knows how long their mission will last."  
  
To be continued.  
  
[Note: I, personally do not like the new Armada series, I also did not care for Beast Machines, so how did I wind up writing a story that combined the two?? I will admit though, that Armada is improving, the new episodes are not as bad as the earlier episodes, the new ones have achieved the level of crap. I still hope that the series will actually be good by the time it ends. If anyone is interested in borrowing some of my ideas I am using in my story for their own stories, please let me know, I would love to see what you can do.] 


	3. Return to Earth

Disclaimer: I don't own the rights to Transformers, or any of the Transformers series.  
  
Note: When I began this I really wanted to make it completely show accurate. but with Armada I'm just not sure I will be able to do that. still I will try. I hope to at least retain the spirit of the Armada cartoon.  
  
Pt 3: Return to Earth.  
  
"So, that's Earth, where you fought the Beast Wars, and where the Great War began. Doesn't look so great," Nightscream said.  
  
"That's right," answered Cheetor. "Brings back lots of memories. Tigatron, Airrazor, Dinobot and Depthcharge all died here. Along with so many memories of Rinox and Optimus."  
  
"I never thought I'd be coming back to this planet again," Rattrap said as their ship approached Earth. "I about had enough of it during the Beast Wars."  
  
"Funny, to me its like I'm going home again." Silverbolt said, "What about you, Beloved?"  
  
"I just think that with our new Techno organic forms, we are going to have a hard time disguising ourselves from the inhabitance," Black Arachnia replied.  
  
"We will have to try and limit our contact with the planet's population," Cheetor said. "And remember, based on the information Rattrap got from Duster, any Transformers we are likely to meet will have a different evolution and history from us. We may have a hard time finding common ground, so we should avoid interacting with them until we have a better grasp of the situation."  
  
They landed their ship without interference, for old time sake, they hid their ship as close to where they had originally crash landed at the start of the Beast Wars as they could, although not much of the landscape was recognizable.  
  
Their landing did not go unobserved. In their moon base, Megatron and his Decepticons watched their sensors as closely as ever, looking for any sign of newly awakened Minicons.  
  
"Megatron!" Demolisher called out. "A new Minicon has just entered the system!"  
  
"A new Minicon? Where is it?"  
  
"Well, it landed in same general area as the Autobot's base."  
  
"Landed? What are you talking about, Demolisher?"  
  
"Is Demolisher seeing things again, Megatron?" Starscream asked, it was what he thought passed as a joke.  
  
"Shut up, Starscream! Demolisher?"  
  
"Well, it entered the system from a warp point way out here, and then landed there," Demolisher answered pointing to the monitor. "Should we go out and get it, Megatron? I could use another Minicon!" Cyclonus asked.  
  
Megatron thought for a few moments. The larger part of him wanted to go out at once and take this new Minicon at once and crush whoever had brought it utterly, but another part of him was curious. Where had this Minicon come from, and who had brought it and why? The answers to those questions could completely change the very nature of the war. Perhaps it would be better to simply wait and see in this case. "No. Leave it alone, but continue tracking the new Minicon's signal. I want to know what this new Minicon and its friends are up to. If they should join with the Autobots, we may have to send for more reinforcements."  
  
****  
  
The red truck, flanked by a yellow sports car and a white SUV slowed to a stop not too far from a river. The doors to the vehicles opened and five kids, along with three minicons climbed out, allowing the truck and two vehicles to transform into their robot modes.  
  
"Woah. are you sure this is the place?" the darker skinned kid asked.  
  
"This is where the Minicon was detected, Carlos." The robot that had been the white SUV said.  
  
"We will just have to look around, and hope the Decepticons didn't beat us to it," said the robot that had been the red truck.  
  
"I bet I find it first!" shouted the robot that had been the yellow sports car, as it ran in a random direction.  
  
"No way, Hot Shot, I'm gonna be the one to find this one!" One of the kids shouted back.  
  
"It will probably be around the river in this valley," the female kid said, "That is where the ground is most likely to be disturbed to activate the Minicon. Activated because of water erosion, or maybe a rockslide."  
  
The boys, followed by the yellow transformer seemed to take that as a challenge to get as wet as they could as they rushed into the knee deep water, while the three Minicons looked at each other and beeped quizzically.  
  
Eventually the search moved away, neither the kids nor the Transformers making any move to double back in their search.  
  
"Well, the camouflage works," Silverbolt said from his perch in a tree. He jumped down to the ground, transforming back to his robot mode in mid air.  
  
"Yeah, and Dustor finally shut down his activation signal," Rattrap said, to which Dustor beeped apologetically. Rattrap transformed into his robot mode, as a metal cheetah walked out from under the wing of their barely noticeable ship.  
  
"I wonder why the Decepticons haven't paid us a visit?" Black Arachnia asked, her spider form descending to the ground on an energy web.  
  
"That's not important now," Cheetor said. "Silverbolt, keep a discrete eye on the Autobots. If possible we need to find out where the Autobot's base is. Rattrap, I need you to head for the nearest city and tap into the humans computer network. Find out what has happened on this world in the last few thousand years. And everyone, stay out of sight." They all nodded, Silverbolt transformed back to his bird mode as he took to the sky and Rattrap began his usual complaining as he rolled on his wheel towards town.  
  
"Hey, Cheetor?" Nightscream called out from the ship. "I think I know how we can find out where the Autobots base is."  
  
Cheetor raised an eyebrow, before transforming to his robot mode and going back into the ship. "Ok. How?"  
  
"Just before we detected the Autobots approaching our landing zone, the ship's computers picked up signs of a Space Bridge in operation. If that was how the Autobots got here, then all we have to do is wait until they return and simply track the Path of the bridge."  
  
"Good. Maybe this will be an easy operation after all."  
  
****  
  
"Sewers. ya gotta love them." Rattrap said as he rolled through the wet smelly tunnels that ran under the city.  
  
Despite his reputation, he didn't much care for the smell, or the razzing he would take from his friends when he went back smelling like the sewer. But the sewers did give him the opportunity to roam the city unnoticed. Well, roam under the city anyway.  
  
And the best part, was that with a little rat know how, he could plug into the cities computer networks without risking detection. All he had to do was find a sewer drain that went under a large important looking building, (He assumed it was important looking anyway) find some cables that were running through the sewer line instead, bite through the outer layer, and make the necessary connections. Still it must really be a cheap looking building, otherwise he was sure the computer cabling would be in a separate tunnel or pipe from the sewage.  
  
Soon all the data of the city, and most of the data of the world was his for the asking. He did a search for Autobots and then Decepticons, then Transformers, and finally he started downloading huge tracks of recent history.  
  
He was amused to find Waspinator parts on display at a museum, identified as unknown fossil remains. While most of the information was downloading, he began to study the information he had pulled on Autobots. The funny thing was that it what was not ancient history seemed to be coming from a personal computer and PDA of a young girl named Alexis.  
  
All in all, he had found a wealth of information that would take him and the other Maximals hours to go through.  
  
****  
  
"Finally," Nightscream exclaimed, "The Autobots have warped back to their base. I have the coordinates."  
  
"We assume its their base," Black Arachnia reminded them.  
  
"Ill go check it out," Nightscream said, before Cheetor could say anything. "It will be easier to remain undetected if just one of us went, and since I found the location."  
  
"Ok, Nightscream," Cheetor said. "Go, just be sure not to get caught or seen."  
  
Nightscream smiled before heading out.  
  
****  
  
Nightscream flew unobserved into a cave opening. It was just a random guess on his part. The space bridge's other point was somewhere in the mountain. He figured he would just keep trying caves until he found something. He hoped it would be the Ark that Cheetor and the others had talked about.  
  
He didn't know if it was the Ark or not, but he soon ran across some sort of crashed ship. He bet Rattrap would have a field day if he could be let loose on all those computers.  
  
From his perch on the roof of the cavern, he watched unnoticed as various Autobots and Human kids came and went about their business. It seemed that there were only five human kids in the base and maybe six Autobots, and a variety of Minicons who more or less seemed free to do as they liked. Unless there were more that simply were not in the base right then, but there wasn't much more he could do.  
  
He transformed, and jumped to the ground once he was sure no one was around, and began making his way back out on foot. But he soon discovered that not only was his way out blocked, but he had been discovered.  
  
For a moment he panicked, not sure which way to jump, or if he should even try to fly. The large transformer blocking his path seemed to realize this because it raised its hands up and said, "Hey, the name is Sideways. Don't worry, I'm on your side." 


	4. Forced Contact

I do not own the rights to Transformers, Beast Machines, Beast Wars or Armada. I also wish to apologize in advance for any characterization mistakes that I may have made with the Armada characters. (I'm afraid that I just don't watch that show) I am making every attempt to keep this fanfic as show accurate as possible to both Beast Machines and Armada. although I admit that many of the BM personalities have shifted closer to what they were during Beast Wars. Anyway.  
  
Minicon Dawn Chapter 4: Forced Contact  
  
"So what is it with you and Cheetor?" Sideways asked. Sideways was a one of the Transformers who apparently came from the other Cybertron, he was mostly black in color and had a motorcycle transformation mode. He seemed to be part of two Minicons who were always with him. They would take turns acting as Headmasters for the other robot, and could combine to form the motorcycles rider. Since the Maximals had met him, he had yet to display any faction symbol.  
  
"Its nothing," Silverbolt answered. Silverbolt was a techno organic Transformer with a bird alt mode from the Cybertron that had been formed after the Beast Wars. "I like Cheetor. I always have. I just think he is a bit young to be our leader."  
  
"Who do you think should be leader then?" Sideways asked.  
  
"Hmm." Silverbolt thought. "In the old days, Primal use to appoint Rattrap as his replacement for leadership. But Rattrap is more than happy to follow Cheetor."  
  
"Well, what about you? You seem experienced."  
  
Part of Silverbolt liked that idea. The power, the respect. Finally he would have the ability to really do the right thing. Bring stability back to Cybertron. Maybe both Cybertrons? Then he could find whatever other Cyberonian colonies may be out there, and finally unite all of his people. Then Black Arachnia would look at him with a new level of respect. He flashed back briefly, remembering the power he had once felt as Jetstorm. His spark froze at how easily he could return to what he feared, hated and loved. "No. I have no desire to be leader."  
  
A distance away, Cheetor, in his tecno organic Cheetah mode, kept a close watch on Sideways. There was just something about him that made his spark run cold that he could not put his finger on. Sideways had been a great help so far, enabling them to locate several Minicons that neither the Autobots or Decepticons had known anything about. They almost had enough Minicons to completely fill their ship to capacity, thanks to Sideways' uncanny knowege of where to find the elusive Minicons.  
  
Cheetor also thought it was strange how often Sideways pointed out that he was on their side. How did Sideways know what their side stood for? He didn't really ask them anything about their ideology or morals. He didn't really ask them much of anything, he only seemed surprised that they were something other than Autobot or Decepticon. He had never heard of Maximals, and still he was on their side. Maybe there was more to it than that. Maybe Sideways was looking at a larger picture, and saw himself as being on all their sides, trying to help Maximal, Autobot and Decepticon alike against something else. Or maybe he was really against everyone working only for his own dark purposes. On the other hand, since he seemed to be made up of three different units, maybe all of those options were true. He wanted to try talking to Sideways when he was not wearing one of his Minicon headmasters, but he didn't think the Minicons would ever give him that opportunity.  
  
Still, so far their mission had been extremely successful. Cheetor was beginning to think that they should transport the Minicons they had found so far to Cybertron, and then come back to find some more. All of the Minicons they had saved so far seemed to like the thought of secretly leaving to escape the demands of both Autobot and Decepticon.  
  
The catch was that in order for them to be truly safe, the Autobots and Decepticons must never know the Maximals were ever on Earth, or even existed. But Cheetor just didn't think he could do that in good conscience. He knew enough about the Autobots to know that they would not mistreat their Minicons too badly. At least not as long as Optimus Prime was in command. Many of the other Autobots didn't share his same viewpoint.  
  
The humans were another concern, the kids that hung around the Autobots seemed to care about the Minicons, even more than some Autobots, but even they seemed to take the Minicons for granted, and even hooked them up to play gladiatorial combat games with them. When Black Arachnia found out about that one she made the comment, "If I had known they would evolve into this, I would have squashed Luna myself." Cheetor had no idea what the rest of the human population would do if they became aware of the Minicons, but he was sure it would not be good.  
  
The Decepticons were the biggest worry. The Decepticons made no apologies for their desire to use the Minicons as a slave labor force of power and targetmasters. Cheetor wasn't sure he could leave the situation alone knowing that Minicons were still in Decepticon custody. It would not be that big a problem as long as the Decepticons did not discover the location of Cybertron, but if their Cybertron really was an offshoot of his Cybertron, Cheetor realized they may have some record of where his Cybertron is located. Sideways suggested they take the Decepticons on in force, but Cheetor wanted to avoid a direct confrontation as much as possible. It all started to give Cheetor a headache.  
  
Still, it was good to be back on Earth again. Too bad Tigatron couldn't be there to see it too.  
  
"I've located another one," Sideways shouted.  
  
Cheetor transformed and jumped down next to Sideways, while the other Maximals also gathered around.  
  
"Its in a desert canyon, right here," Sideways said while pointing to a map.  
  
"Has anyone else picked it up?" Cheetor asked.  
  
"Negative," Sideways answered. "I'm jamming the Decepticons and Autobots sensors, they wont have the slightest idea where to look."  
  
Nitro, who like most Minicons was just a little shorter than Cheetor, walked up to him and emitted a series of beeps.  
  
"Thanks, Nitro, but I want you and the rest of the Minicons to stay here where its safe," Cheetor answered, wondering at exactly what point he had begun to understand the strange language the Minicons used. "But, I could use a lift from Spin, Indy and Drift, if you are willing?"  
  
The three named Minicons stepped forward, transforming into their vehicle modes, a half size race car, Indy car, and SUV. Then they transformed again, merging into Cosmotector, a jet plane large enough for Cheetor, Black Arachnia and Rattrap to climb on. Silverbolt and Nightscream each transformed into their flight capable beast modes. Sideways transformed into his motorcycle mode, and tore into the woods shouting back that he would meet the rest of them there.  
  
****  
  
Megatron rippled into existence as he teleported to the lip of the canyon. Starscream, Thrust, Demolisher, Wheeljack and Cyclonus joined him a second later.  
  
"What are we waiting for, Megatron? Lets get down there and find that Minicon," Demolisher asked.  
  
"Not yet, Demolisher," Megatron said. "Something doesn't feel quite right here. This canyon would be the perfect place for an ambush."  
  
"Ha! The Autobots are too stupid to come up with a trick like that," Starscream said.  
  
"That may be true, but still, we should." Megatrons voice drifted off for a moment as his gaze fell upon something at the base of the canyon. It was Sideways, he was sure of it. What was that traitor up to now?  
  
For a moment, Sideways's gaze met Megatron's. Why did Sideways seem so pleased with himself?  
  
Sideways warped away.  
  
"Megatron! What are we waiting for?" Starscream asked, bringing Megatron's attention back to his troops.  
  
"Yes, this is the perfect place for an ambush, but for who? All of you, hide down in the canyon, and we shall wait to ambush the Autobots when they arrive," Megatron ordered.  
  
Megatron and Demolisher transformed into their tank modes, and rolled down into the canyon. Starscream and Thrust transformed into their jet modes, and flew over the canyon, each transforming back to robot mode to land once they had their ambush spots picked out. Cyclonus in his helicopter mode found his own spot as well. Wheeljack did not transform into his car mode, instead he grumbled but climbed down the side of the canyon wall on his hands and feet.  
  
****  
  
"We will radio you if we need you to pick us up," Cheetor told Cosmotector, just before he leapt off the plane holding his swords in front of himself to act as a wing as he glided down the rest of the way. Black Arachnia grabbed the complaining Rattrap, and gracefully jumped off the plane to the ground. Silverbolt and Nightscream landed next to them.  
  
"No sign of Sideways, but I guess this is the place." Nightscream said.  
  
"Lets go down, spread out and find that Minicon," Cheetor said, "Beast Mode."  
  
Cheetor fell back into his cheetah mode, and made his way down into the canyon, followed by the spider, Black Arachnia; the rat, Rattrap; the bat, Nightscream; and Silverbolt.  
  
***  
  
Nightscream gave up on his beast mode, Minicon hunting was a job best done on foot. "I am transformed," he said, landing in his robot mode. "We never say that anymore, and it was such a cool tagline."  
  
"It sounds rather dorky to me," Thrust said, stepping out from behind the bolder he was using for cover. The Decepticon towered over the tiny Maximal.  
  
***  
  
Rattrap decided to keep to the shaded areas of the canyon. Not really because they felt more sewer like, or because he wanted to be out of the sun, but because the rat in him just didn't like being out in the open. But the cybertronian in him, much preferred the ground surface his feet had just found. Nothing more reassuring than the feel of cold steel under the tootsies to feel at home.  
  
Wait a minute.  
  
Earth doesn't have steel ground!  
  
"Oh, man. why is it always the rat that gets trapped like a rat?" he said, knowing it was already too late to run when the metal cage like grate shot overhead and scooped him into the darkness.  
  
Megatron transformed, he rarely had the opportunity to use his leg trap. He reached down and claimed his new prize. The mechanical rat fit nicely in his hand.  
  
"Interesting. A Minicon who can talk," he said. "I may have to fix that."  
  
"Oh, cheese!"  
  
***  
  
He didn't know why, he didn't have time to think. He just reacted. In one motion he transformed into his robot mode and back flipped out of the way as a sword every bit as wide as he was, slammed into the ground where he had been standing.  
  
"We Maximals may be small," Cheetor said to the towering form of Starscream, "But there is no way we are going down that easily."  
  
Cheetor pulled his own swords, and assumed a combat stance.  
  
Starscream laughed! This insect, that didn't even come up to his knee, thought it had a fighting chance! This is one Minicon he would enjoy breaking in very much. He readied his sword for another strike.  
  
***  
  
Silverbolt thought he saw a glint of metal, and flew in for a closer look.  
  
He did not find the green Minicon plate he was expecting, but instead found a brown battle tank with four barrels, two mounted to either side of the turret. He landed on a rock and studied the tank for a moment.  
  
Its markings obviously indicated the tank was a Decepticon. Most likely the one Sideways referred to as Demolisher.  
  
Obviously he was not use to thinking of animals as transformers or he would have attacked already, Silverbolt thought. How should he handle this situation.  
  
He had a delightful idea, and flew out of demolishers line of sight.  
  
Demolisher patience was rewarded. Finally a Minicon came into view, walking innocently along.  
  
He laughed as he started up his engine and advanced on the unsuspecting Minicon.  
  
The Minicon turned in horror to face him, and said as if reciting lines off a note card, "Oh, No. I big bad Decepticon. What ever shall I do?"  
  
"Haha," Demolisher laughed, transforming. He reached out to claim his new Minicon. Wait. Minicons don't speak, do they?"  
  
***  
  
Black Arachnia waited until she got bored, but obviously the Autobot turned Decepticon, Wheeljack, was not going to move out of her way. She really couldn't believe his stupidity. He was a giant black robot, how did he expect to not be seen crouching against tan rocks! He would have noticed her if he had even thought to look up.  
  
Well, she would just have to take him out.  
  
She let go of the web that was suspending her above the Decepticon, transformed, and performed a spin kick knocking the transformer's gun out of his hand, and landing neatly on her feet.  
  
Wheeljack tried to back up in surprise at the unexpected attack, from an unexpectedly small opponent, but found that he was quite literally had his back against the wall.  
  
Black Arachnia did not relent in her attack, she charged jumping up on Wheeljack's chest, planting her talons deep in the scar that ran across his chest, and injected an unhealthy dose of cyber venom.  
  
Wheeljack screamed in pain, then surrendered to stasis lock.  
  
"That was impressive," Sideways said, behind her.  
  
She turned to see his gun leveled at her.  
  
She jumped. He fired.  
  
***  
  
"Forget it, cone-head, I'm not going down that easily," Nightscream said, dodging another blast from thrusts gun.  
  
He jumped behind a bolder, not that he expected it to do much good. Thrust could simply vaporize the rock, or pick it up, or even stand over it and shoot down at him. Time to take out the gun then.  
  
Thrust reached for the bolder, giving Nightscream the chance he needed to leap to the side, mouth open. His vampire teeth shot outward impacting with Thrust's gun.  
  
Thrust aimed and fired. Nothing happened.  
  
"Kinda hard to shoot when your gun is out of power, isn't it?" Nightscream taunted.  
  
"Ill show you," Thrust angrily shouted, and transformed, taking to the sky.  
  
Nightscream scrambled to get out of the way of Thrust's strafing run.  
  
***  
  
"Now, rodent. Powerlink!" Megatron shouted as he slammed Rattrap onto his forearm Minicon connector port.  
  
Rattrap screamed in pain as Megatron's powerlink port tried to make connections that Rattrap was not equipped to make. Instead Rattrap did the only thing he could think to do, he bit down on the hand that was holding him.  
  
Megatron shouted out in pain and surprise, throwing the other transformer to the ground.  
  
"Do you have any idea how invasive that is?" Rattrap asked.  
  
Megatron growled, held Leader One as a gun, and fired.  
  
"You know, your voice sounds kinda like I've heard it before," Rattrap said, transforming in to his robot mode, dodging each of the blasts. "Do you do bar mitzvahs?"  
  
"Why you little."  
  
Rattrap pulled his own gun, grateful to Silverbolt for finding him one. "Don't matter what planet they are from. When fighting bots, aim for the hinges!"  
  
Rattrap fired.  
  
****  
  
Cheetor thought about dodging Starscreams next attack, but decided instead on a show of strength. As Starscream's sword came down, Cheetor raised his own swords and blocked the blow, to Starscream's complete surprise.  
  
"We were like you once. some 600 years ago," Cheetor said as he leaped up making several strikes with his own swords that Starscream narrowly blocked. "Do you really thing we would allow ourselves to become so small if it meant a reduction in power?"  
  
"You don't even know what power is!" Starscream snarled, going back on the offencive. He tried to drive the smaller transformer back, but Cheetor met each blow with equal force.  
  
"Fighting you is like fighting a Neanderthal." Cheetor taunted.  
  
Starscream raised his sword in another attempt to overpower Cheetor, but then decided to change tatics, and brought the sword around in a golf swing.  
  
Taken by surprise, Cheetor found himself being knocked into and imbedded in the canyon wall. "I guess Neanderthals sure can hit."  
  
Starscream leapt up and deployed his shoulder lasers, taking careful aim at the trapped Cheetor, who franticly brought up his swords to block the expected blast.  
  
A small red mechanical bird flew overhead.  
  
***  
  
Silverbolt leapt up and fired several energy blasts as Demolisher lunged for him.  
  
Demolisher reeled from the impacts, and fired blindly back, laser blasts erupting from each of his fingertips.  
  
The energy blasts impacted all around Silverbolt, his internal systems calculating the trajectories of Demolisher's attack, and standing in the safe area at the center of the attack. Once Demolisher began trying to make his attack more accurate, Silverbolt took the air, and renewed his own attack of firing energy feathers.  
  
A roar filled the air, Silverbolt and Demolisher each saw the Decepticon Thrust fly up into the sky, and arc back around in an apparent attack run on another section of the canyon.  
  
So, thought Silverbolt, there was more than just this one Decepticon. The others may need his help. He needed to finish this quickly.  
  
He formed a new energy feather, and held it at ready, then leapt up to charge at the face of his foe.  
  
***  
  
Black Arachnia jumped and dodged, but found that she could not escape the relentless attack of Sideways, who now wore his other Minicon head and sported a Decepticon insignia. He kept firing at her, not giving her the opening she needed to strike back.  
  
Finally she managed to jump over to Wheeljack's unconscious body and use it for cover from Sideways' attack. Even though she was clear, she could still hear the shots as they impacted on Wheeljack's body. Finally Sideways stopped shooting.  
  
"Its no use hiding," He said. She figured he was trying to distract her while he moved to a better firing position. She was not going to give him that chance.  
  
Black Arachnia did a leap back over Wheeljack, twisting in midair to dodge a fresh volley of laser fire from Sideways. She landed, imbedding her talons in the ground. Digital lightning traveled along the ground outward from her talons, stretching outwardly until it reached Sideways.  
  
Sideways screamed in agony as electricity and cybervenom wracked his form, but he did not die. He did not even enter stasis lock.  
  
She delivered another dose of cybervenom, but the second attack seemed to hurt him less than the first. It was almost as if Sideways had stopped pretending to be. mortal.  
  
Sideways began laughing.  
  
"What-- What are you?" Black Arachnia exclaimed.  
  
"Do you really want to know?" Sideways replied, but if he said anything more it was drowned out by cannon fire.  
  
Laser blasts crossed in front of Black Arachnia, impacting with Sideways, who seemed to look more and more like energy with each hit.  
  
A tank, Demolisher rolled into position beside her, continuing to fire at Sideways. "Could you use a hand, Beloved?" Silverbolt asked from the seat positioned behind the tank's guns. Silverbolt's own attack joined Demolisher's and Black Arachnia's  
  
"You better believe it, Bolt!"  
  
Demolisher unexpectedly transformed, dropping Silverbolt to the ground in a manner less dignified than he would have liked.  
  
"Megatron wants you dead, Sideways," Demolisher exclaimed as he continued to fire at Sideways, not even realizing he had knocked Silverbolt off.  
  
Silverbolt and Black Arachnia glanced at each other, then Silverbolt transformed into his bird mode and lifted Black Arachnia up into the air. "In that case, Decepticon, we will leave this one to you!"  
  
"Hey, wait!! You can't leave me, I'm your prisoner!!" Demolisher called after the two Maximals.  
  
Sideways growled when he saw the two escape, but with no further reason to be there, he was gone.  
  
Demolisher stood all alone, beside the unmoving form of Wheeljack.  
  
****  
  
"Optimus, Laserbeak is back," Alexis called as the mechanical bird transformed into a video camera in her hand, and began playing back its recordings.  
  
She looked down at the images, and she imagined her face must have show some form of shock, because Carlos and Rad rushed over and began watching over her shoulder.  
  
"lookit that!"  
  
"Totally awesome! Those Minicons are really kicking butt!"  
  
Finally Optimus Prime said, "Let me see that."  
  
Prime took the camera, and did a quick download of its data. He wasn't completely sure what the battle footage he was watching meant, but the one thing that was clear was that the Decepticons were involved, and he must do whatever he could to prevent their getting any more Minicons.  
  
"Autobots, lets move out!"  
  
****  
  
Thrust circled around again to make yet another pass at Nightscream. The small transformer was proving a difficult target, the way he kept hiding behind rocks, and moving whenever he adjusted his flight path for a clear shot.  
  
Nightscream for his part was getting tired of hiding. He considered taking to the air, but he could tell he was no match for the speed of the faster jet, and he didn't want to risk his wings being perforated.  
  
Pebbles kicked up from Thrusts latest strafing run hit Nightscream in the face. That was the final straw. He waited until Thrust came around again. Then jumped out into the clear to face the jet head on.  
  
Thrust began firing, the blasts impacting all around Nightscream.  
  
Thrust wasn't close enough yet, so Nightscream waited. He waited longer than he could bare.  
  
He screamed. only his scream was drowned out by the sonic cannon mounted behind his head.  
  
At first it registered as mild turbulence, then his hull plating began to buckle. Thrust transformed when he realized his wing was about to be torn off by the sudden sonic vibrations.  
  
Once out of his jet mode, Thrust was unprepared and fell like a rock. Unconsciousness greeted him upon landing.  
  
Nightscream took to the air. It was time to find the others.  
  
***  
  
"Aww, man. Do all you Megatrons come with triple thick armor?" Rattrap asked, slowly backing up as he continued firing his gun.  
  
"You little mechanoid. I will crush you to atoms," Megatron threatened. It was becoming obvious that Rattraps attacks were having an effect on him. He was slower, moving hurt, and his armor had developed several pinprick sized holes that sent sparks showering.  
  
"Come on. Fall! Fall!" Rattrap shouted. He knew he could stop Megatron, but he also knew his gun didn't have enough charge to finish the job.  
  
"That sounds like my line," Megatron said. His torso expanded, and his tank turret that was mounted on his back rotated around to his front. The turret's cannon and missile launcher aimed them selves directly at Rattrap, as his torso sank back down into position.  
  
Rattrap raised his arms up to protect his face when the blast hit, knocking him through a rock, and out of robot mode.  
  
A smoking rat climbed back up on top of a rock. "All right, that does it!"  
  
Rattrap transformed back into robot mode, and jumped up as he charged forward, passing over Megatron's second shot. He transformed into rat mode as he landed and rolled under Megatron's third shot. That brought him right up to Megatron's leg. Rattrap bit and sank his teeth in deep.  
  
Megatron screamed in pain, and his turret rotated back around to his back, but a knife blade deployed in his hand which he used in an attempt to skewer the robotic rat.  
  
Rattrap dodged the knife attack by transforming back into robot mode, pointing his pistol at the point where his leg met his torso. He fired point blank range.  
  
Megatron wobbled on his feet but did not fall over.  
  
Rattrap fired again. Nothing happened, his weapon's charge was depleted.  
  
No better time for a rapid advance to the rear than the present, he thought. And he ran.  
  
Megatron attempted to pursue, but found he was too badly damaged to give chase. He fired a few volleys after the retreating Rattrap. "Next time, little one, you will not take me by surprise," he warned.  
  
"Yeah, likewise."  
  
***  
  
Cyclonus had come to the conclusion that no one was coming. He had been waiting forever for someone to go by his chosen ambush spot. He had made sure to pick a good spot that anyone in the canyon would be sure to pass.  
  
Oh. this was ridiculous. There was no one in the Canyon. and little wonder with Thrust making his joyrides, although that stopped a few moments before. He bet that Starscream had already gone off and found the Minicon.  
  
He switched back to his helicopter mode and began climbing out of the canyon. He had every intention of finding Megatron and find out just how long this farce of a plan was to continue.  
  
While gaining altitude, Cyclonus completely failed to notice Rattrap Silverbolt, Black Arachnia and Nightscream meeting up with each other, before moving on to find Cheetor.  
  
Cyclonus cleared the lip of the canyon to find himself windshield to windshield with Optimus Prime. Beside Prime was the yellow sports car, Hot Shot; the green bulldozer, Scavenger; the white SUV, Red Alert; and the crane, Smokescreen.  
  
***  
  
Cheetor brought the swords together to block Starscream's blast. He did not actually manage to redirect it like he normally would, but he did manage to divide the blast so that it took out the rocks on either side of him, freeing him from the rock face that Starscream's golf putt had left him in.  
  
Free to move once more, Cheetor kicked free of the rocks landing in cheetah mode, running full speed at Starscream. He transformed again into his robot mode, holding his swords out in front as a wing. A sonic boom sounded as he broke the sound barrier, immediately before he collided with Starscream.  
  
Starscream toppled over backwards, landing hard in the dirt. Cheetor remained on Starscream's chest, his swords poised over the larger robot's head.  
  
Then Cheetor froze and slowly turned around.  
  
Megatron stood there, next to Wheeljack, Demolisher and Thrust. They all looked more than a little worse for ware.  
  
The other Maximals had also arrived, and took up positions in front of the damaged Decepticons.  
  
"Megatron!" The voice of Cyclonus called out from above, flying into the area, the Autobots in pursuit following along the top of the canyon.  
  
Megatron snarled as he saw how the odds had shifted against him. One by one the Decepticons teleported away.  
  
Cheetor fell to the ground as the Decepticon he was standing on warped away.  
  
"Time to fade, Heros." Cheetor called out, and the Maximals turned and ran.  
  
The Autobots watched in confusion as the Minicons they had come to help ran from them. And the Decepticons had retreated even earlier than they had expected.  
  
"I'll catch them!" Hot Shot shouted as he jumped into the canyon and began chasing after the Maximals.  
  
"Hot Shot, no! Wait!" Optimus Prime called after him, but the over eager young transformer was either too engrossed or too far away to hear. 


	5. New Alliances

Usual disclaimers. Don't own Transformers, Beast Wars or Beast Machines or even Armada. After writing chapters like this one, I cant help wondering where in the world its going as it keeps taking unexpected detours. (  
  
Minicon Dawn Chapter 5 New Alliances By isoner  
  
Optimus Prime and the other Autobots pulled to a stop, and Transformed to study the scene in front of them. A sight unlike any they could even begin to imagine. There in front of them, spread across the canyon was what appeared to be some sort of Energon Web. Suspended in the center of that web, was the yellow sports car known as Hot Shot.  
  
"Uh. Guys? Could you get me down now?" Hot Shot asked.  
  
"Just a moment, Hot Shot." Prime said, his eyes scanning the canyon walls around them for any trace of the Minicons that the younger Autobot had been in hot pursuit of. His sensors could not detect anything, but still he felt uneasy.  
  
"This would be a good spot for an ambush, Optimus," Scavenger said.  
  
"All the more reason to get me down," Hot Shot said.  
  
"That is what they want, Hot Shot. You're the bait." Scavenger explained.  
  
"Its Ok. Scavenger, Red Alert, cut him down," Prime ordered. "Hot Shot, why did you chase after those Minicons?"  
  
"But, Optimus, they were getting away!"  
  
"So? We race to find the Minicons to keep them out of the hands of the Decepticons because they typically cannot defend themselves against them. These apparently can. I would prefer it if they would help us, but if they are not willing, then so be it. We wont force them."  
  
"I hoped you would feel that way," said a voice from somewhere in the rocks.  
  
And then, a robotic energy signature appeared out of nowhere. Not exactly nowhere, but from the direction of the voice.  
  
All of the Autobots, and their accompanying Minicons shifted, at the noise, leveling their weapons.  
  
Hot Shot continued to dangle in mid air, only a few of the web strands holding him up having been cut.  
  
Cheetor, freshly transformed into his robot mode, walked slowly into view with his hands raised. It was a peaceful gesture, although one that would not slow his combat effectiveness if the Autobots should prove hostile after all.  
  
"The minicons?" Sideswipe said, backing up slightly.  
  
"And we are not Minicons," Cheetor said, "We are the Maximals."  
  
****  
  
A spark. or a ghost of a spark floated on its endless journey through time and space. Once more it seemed to be caught in the blue green planet's gravity. But could such an item be caught in a planets gravity, or was it fate, or destiny, or penance that it should once more return to the world that had caused it so much trouble in life. But then, it did not go to the planet, but took a sharp turn towards its moon.  
  
****  
  
Cybertron.  
  
On a deserted section of the planet, overgrown with techno organic plants, except for a fresh metal crevice that that glowed red from burning fires beneath the surface of the planet.  
  
Oblivious to this recent upheaval of Cybertron's geography, a tiny insect found rare joy visiting each of the glowing flowers in turn. It genuinely seemed to enjoy to basking in the glowing light of each individual bloom. One of the few moments of happiness the poor creature had ever enjoyed.  
  
Fire flared from the center of the crevice, and a bizarre holographic face seemed to be flickering in the flames. The face was very unusual. it wasn't the face of Optimus Primal nor was it the face of Megatron. In many ways it was both, but it was ever shifting, and beyond description.  
  
"Waspinator!" it called in a voice that was both Primal and Megatrons, and neither.  
  
The insect, a tiny wasp with a head that resembled the dead Vehicon Thrust, looked up from its flower in surprise. It had been so long since it had heard any of its old names, it had almost forgotten what they were.  
  
"Waspinator, come here!" The voice commanded.  
  
The insect obeyed, and hovered before the fiery face, gazing at it in wonder. Recognizing it as both Primal and Megatron and the Oracle and more.  
  
"I have a job for you," the voice said.  
  
"Why Waspinator?" the insect asked in a weakened voice.  
  
"As one of the few Transformers alive from before the Reformating, you are ideally suited for this task. And if this new world is truly to be balanced, then the Maximal, Cheetor, cant be the only one we grant visions to. As a Predicon, you are dually acceptable."  
  
Waspinator knew at once that he had a decision to make that would influence the fate of his entire planet. He was not use to that. The fate of planets usually relied on others. He wanted nothing to do with it.  
  
. "No." . "If you're loyal to everyone." . "Waspinator sick of being evil." . "Can you really be loyal to anyone?"  
  
No. he did not want to be evil, or do anything evil, even if he was Predicon. But he was loyal. He had long ago sworn his loyalty to Megatron for his own reasons.  
  
"Waspinator will obey."  
  
"Excellent. Yesss." the voice said. "You will go out across the land, and deliver the messages I shall grant you."  
  
"But no one listens to Waspinator. Especially not now. I'm not even an insecticon." Waspinator stopped speaking as he was wracked with pain. In tense and incredible pain, as fire began within him and spread outward throughout his body. It was a pain unlike any he had ever experienced. except perhaps for the time he was thrown into a force field, followed shortly by a garbage masher.  
  
The fire that spread through him left in its wake a fantastic new techno organic body. Black and gold with green wings, resembling a transmetal 2 body. Waspinator looked down at his new body, downloading its stats.  
  
"Well, that's just prime," Waspinator said, he could hardly wait to try out his new jet mode.  
  
****  
  
Earth's Moon.  
  
Starscream grumbled as he continued his useless acts of maintenance. What was the point in fixing up the old Minicon ship? It would never fly again in any case. As much of it was acting as the Autobot's base as was acting as theirs.  
  
A pair of evil eyes gazed at him from the computer console.  
  
Starscream stared at them in shock and horror.  
  
The eyes, along with a large jolt of electricity leapt from the computer console onto him. but after a momentary pain, he was himself again, and he saw the bolt of lightning return to the computer.  
  
"Well. that has never happened before." A high pitched voice from the computer said.  
  
"Who. what are you?" Starscream asked the voice.  
  
"I am the legendary, Air Commander Starscream!"  
  
"Ha," Starscream answered in his deeper voice, "Nice trick. I am not yet a legend, but /I/ am Starscream!"  
  
The voice laughed. "No wonder then! Perhaps we can help each other!" 


	6. Debates and Visions

Usual disclaimers. For some reason I still don't own the rights to Transformers. Blatant reuse of old Transformer names on new characters in effect.  
  
Minicon Dawn  
  
Chapter 6  
  
By isoner  
  
Cybertron.  
  
The stray transformer wandered the streets of Cybertron wearing a tattered cloak. The cloak was really unnecessary given that transformers traditionally don't wear clothing, but he liked the image it gave him. The many homeless who had become his followers, tagged along behind him, keeping a respectful distance.  
  
When he had first wandered into town, most of them considered him a lunatic, but then many of the things he said came true. Such as the sudden decrease in available housing due to a sudden growth spurt of vines and weeds which was responsible for most of the newest batch of homeless. The homelessness was presently Cybertron's second greatest crisis.  
  
Even Gigatron was beginning to take note of the vagrant prophet. He kept agents around him at all times, taking careful measure of everything he said. In time he planned to bring him into his own movement, and all his followers as well.  
  
The prophet suddenly stopped in his tracks, and his followers began circling around him, as well as a few of Cheetor's security personnel, ready to prevent a riot if needed.  
  
"Its another vision," someone whispered.  
  
The Prophet spoke. "Oooohh. Catbot and Truckbot make a deal. Catbot keeping shortbots hidden, but will meet with Truckbot soon at his base to discuss terms."  
  
The whispers resumed, "Catbot? I think he means commander Cheetor. Isn't Cheetor off planet now? Who could this Turckbot be?"  
  
"Awww. Plantbot has a headache. she is loosing control. The planet is no longer in balance. too much organics. need more mechanicals in order to survive."  
  
"Plantbot? Could it be Botanica? No one has seen her in ages. This is all her fault! It could be another from her colony. We should raze the plants to the metal ground!"  
  
"The Great Head is distressed that so many bots have not learned how to use their new bodies. That's why bots starve!"  
  
"What does he mean? What is this great head? How does one learn to use our bodies? Maybe he really is a crackpot."  
  
***  
  
"That's what he said all right, every word." The stooge finished his report to Gigatron.  
  
"Interesting. And just who is this person anyway? Have we determined who he is or where he came from?" Gigatron asked.  
  
"Yes, My Lord," Dinobot answered from behind him. "As near as our agents have been able to tell, he wandered in from the outer sectors. We think. he is a Predicon survivor from before the plague, named Waspinator. But he does nothing but rant on about nothing. Why are you interested?"  
  
"Because, Dinobot," Gigatron replied, "He is right, about the reason for the starvation. I know that one first hand. And everything else he has stated has also been true. least everything we have been able to verify. We have no idea how long Cheetor is going to remain off planet, just so long as he is gone long enough for us to complete our plans, but it sounds as if we will have the time we need.  
  
"Send Thrustol out to recruit this Waspinator to our cause. Make sure he does so in a subtle way. We don't want our valuable prophet to feel coerced so that he may turn against us."  
  
****  
  
Fixit was one of the few new cybertronians who was ambitious enough to dedicate themselves to the medical field. It was extra difficult a task, combining what he could learn about Cybertronian mechanics from what had been salvaged from the archives with what texts he could find on organic life, most of which had been written by a scientist named Arcana. The difficult part was that neither technology directly applied to present Transformer anatomy.  
  
It was difficult enough dealing with the techno organic transformers that were animal based, it was even more difficult to deal with the plant based organics of Botanica.  
  
He was helpless, standing next to her, unable to do anything but simply watch her writhe in pain on the floor.  
  
Botanica was in too much pain to tell what little she could that would have helped her, for she knew the cause of her pain. She had pushed too hard, too far, too fast. It was all out of control now, and she did not know how to fix it, or herself.  
  
****  
  
Earth's Moon.  
  
"Your history is nothing like mine." Starscream said.  
  
"Well, I guess we can't be identical, then can we?" The voice from the computer answered. "Still, there must be some way we can help each other."  
  
"What can a possessed computer do?"  
  
"My usual. method of operation is to possess the first body I come across, and quickly climb through the ranks, until I can take command myself."  
  
"I've been trying that trick for years. Trouble is that upstart Cyclonus getting more Minicons, and that was just pure luck on his part. Nothing I do seems to help."  
  
The glowing face on the computer seemed to smirk. "Then why don't I aim straight for the top. You help me get Megatron's body, and you will be my second in command!"  
  
Starscream grinned. An upstart ghost in a body it doesn't know anything about should be easy. Who should he make his second in command? Thrust? Maybe Demolisher. Better yet, that naïve upstart Wheeljack.  
  
"I think we have a deal."  
  
****  
  
Earth.  
  
"Man. I do not like this. It feels too much like a trap, and I know traps," Rattrap said as he and the other Maximals walked through the tunnels that led to the Autobot's base.  
  
"I agree," added Black Arachnia, "This is exactly how I would like my meals prepared."  
  
"Don't worry, Beloved," said Silverbolt with his noble voice, "The Autobots are suppose to be the good guys."  
  
"So all we have to worry about is the 'supposed to' part," said Nightscream.  
  
Cheetor listened to it all in silence. There wasn't anything the others were saying that he had not already thought himself. Just to be on the safe side, he had left the Minicons they had rescued at their ship, and gave them instruction on how to launch it to return to Cybertron if the Autobots should prove less than honorable. He mostly trusted Prime, but he wasn't so sure about the others.  
  
The large yellow robot Hot Shot, greeted them at the inter gate to the base with a smile. "Hey guys! What took you so long?"  
  
"We had a hard time finding the place," Cheetor said, no point in mentioning that thanks to his scout, he already knew exactly where the base was. The reason it took so long was their caution. Never be where an enemy expects you to be, when they expect you to be there.  
  
Hot Shot began by giving the Maximals a tour of the base, showing them their training areas, living quarters for both themselves and the Minicons. They found Scavenger snoring loudly in one of the storage rooms.  
  
Throughout the entire tour, Cheetor and the others were aware of the small group of human children that kept watching them from the shadows as they went from place to place. They were too curious to stay away, and too afraid to come out into the open.  
  
The tour ended in the briefing room where Optimus Prime and Red Alert was waiting for them. "Welcome Cheetor," Optimus Prime said, "The Minicons will be here shortly to hear what you have to say. Before they get here, I want to know, why are you making this effort for them?"  
  
"We got the distress signal that went out when they were first activated on this planet too. It woke up Duster, and he told us the situation on your planet. So we decided to help." Cheetor said.  
  
"That is very noble of you, and I agree. I believe that freedom is the right of all sentient beings, Cheetor, even the Minicons, but the Decepticons don't see it that way. We need the help of the Minicons to defeat them. But tell me Cheetor, there is more to it than that isn't there?"  
  
"That sounded like something Bigbot would say. Yes there is. When I was younger I use to read a lot from the Cronicles of Rodimus Major, who lived through most of our races most radical changes, from the dwindling of the Autobots and Decepticons to the rise of the Maximals and Predicons."  
  
Optimus Primes Optics widened at that, but Cheetor did not notice.  
  
"In one part he writes about a time when Autobot scientists came up with the idea to merge Humans, Nebulans, or Micromasters from Master with Autobots to improve their overall efficiency. The process did all it was suppose to and more. Other beings became our guns to improve our aiming, and reduce the energy drain the weapons had on our systems. They became our heads to improve our abilities of strategy and endless other skills. They became our engines to give us an extra power boost. And of course the Decepticons duplicated the technology to gain all the same advantages. Rodimus Major himself had a Nebulan counterpart who became his gun. The passage he wrote describing the pain he felt when the Nebulan died was. very moving."  
  
Rattrap interrupted, "Hey, my great aunt was a Headmaster for a while. When he was killed, it drove her insane for a few hundred years."  
  
"Not only was the emotional blow when their companions died unexpected," Cheetor continued, "But so was the callousness we began to feel for these races as a whole. Some of us began to view them more as a resource than as living beings. One transformer even forgot completely that his gun was alive when he threw it down, killing it. Naturally when he realized that, he was devastated. That was the sort of thing that led to us abandoning all contact with Earth some 300 years ago. No life form deserves to be used that way. No Micromaster, Nebulan, Human, or even Minicon should ever be subjected to that by any Transformer, no matter what planet they come from."  
  
"Your words have the harsh ring of truth, Cheetor," Optimus Prime said, "I too have caught myself thinking of Minicons as tools from time to time. I don't want to, but if either the Autobots or Minicons are to survive, we have to make use of the Minicons and their abilities. But I swear to you, Cheetor, the second this is over, all such Minicon use will stop."  
  
"You make it sound like you will be turning them off."  
  
Before Prime could reply, the Minicons began walking into the room and taking their seats. Once they were seated, Cheetor began talking about a world where they would not, and in fact could not, be used as they had before. A world that had finally found peace that would accept them with no expectations being given.  
  
Then Optimus Prime spoke about duty, seeing things through to the end. About how they could never truly be free until the threat had been looked in the eye and faced down. They both spoke the same old rhetoric the Minicons had heard before from one person or another. In the end, some of them did decide to go with Cheetor to the new Cybertron, while many others chose to stay behind to help the Autobots fight their war against the Decepticons for freedom.  
  
Neither Cheetor nor Prime were really pleased since neither got a decisive victory. But it was just the first round. In another day, Optimus Prime would meet the Maximals at their camp where he would have a chance to state his arguments to the Minicons there. Then they too would have a choice between staying with the Autobots or going to Cyberton.  
  
Optimus Prime escorted Cheetor and the Maximals out of the base. "What happened to the Autobots on your world, Cheetor?" he asked.  
  
"Evolution." Cheetor said. "I'm not sure I should say more than that. Some died, some retired, others became Maximals. A few are rumored to be around, but due to recent events none are on Cybertron anymore. Only Cybertronians live there now."  
  
"I find it hard to imagine, Cheetor." Prime said. "I envy your planet, I think. Peace is a forgotten dream for most of us."  
  
"Well, I think you would find a half organic Cybertron hard to imagine, I know I couldn't have imagined it until it happened."  
  
"I got the impression that you, yourself have been on Earth before?"  
  
"We crashed here once. A long time ago, as a clock flies. Not so long for me. Things didn't quite go as planned though."  
  
****  
  
"Megatron it was over here!" Starscream called, hurrying ahead of his commander, leading him to the computer bank where the disembodied spark of Air Commander Starscream waited.  
  
"This had better be important, Starscream!" Megatron said, he had been practicing with the Star Saber, and had not welcomed the interruption. Leader-1 followed a respectable distance behind.  
  
"It is Megatron. There is this face in the computer and it keeps asking for you. Here it is." They stopped in front of the computer, the glowing eyes gazed at Megatron.  
  
"I suppose it was too much to hope that you would have a jet mode," the eyes said.  
  
"Who. what are you? What do you want of me?" Megatron asked.  
  
"I don't want much. just your body!" the voice said. A ball of lightning shot from the computer bank and charged at Megatron.  
  
Megatron raised up the Star Saber to defend himself. He struck at the lightning, which the sword seemed to absorb instantly.  
  
They were alone, just Megatron, Starscream, Leader-1 and the Star Saber.  
  
"If that was a threat, it was greatly overrated!" Megatron said.  
  
Starscream stifled a growl of frustration.  
  
Then the unexpected happened. The Star Saber freed itself from Megatron's grasp, and separated into its three component Minicon jets.  
  
The three jets flew all around Megatron and the corridor. They displayed acts of flying skill that Megatron had not known possible. Each of the jets screamed through the air, making attack runs at Megatron.  
  
Megatron raised his hands up to defend himself, while Leader-1 and Starscream fell flat.  
  
The first jet took full advantage of Megatron's raised arm to powerlink to it. The second powerlinked on his back turret, while the last jet linked to the treads beside Megatron's head.  
  
Megatron screamed. then silence echoed.  
  
++  
  
Now. how should I keep your consciousness occupied while I make use of your body, Starscream thought, while sifting through Megatron's mind.  
  
Before when I possessed that insect, it had been easy, I simply let him relive my memories of the Insecticons. He had so idolized them. But Megatron is different.  
  
Finally Starscream decided, I know. We are so alike in our dreams and ambitions, I shall let you live within my own dream of total conquest!  
  
++  
  
Megatron stood triumphant. All bowed before him, Optimus Prime, Rodimus Prime, Optimus Primal. all acknowledged him as the one true leader, while the remains of a silver gun Megatron lay on display.  
  
He basked in the sincere adulations of the crowds.  
  
He entered battle, unstoppable. All of his enemies fell before him.  
  
And yet in some part of his mind, Megatron couldn't quite shake the thought that this was in some way wrong. Somehow it was not his Cybertron at all. Could there be more than one?  
  
He conquered another world, and returned home in triumph. He couldn't help noting the navigation settings on the ship. He was returning to Cybertron, all right, but it was not the one he remembered.  
  
++  
  
"Megatron?" the red and black Starscream asked, "Are you Ok?"  
  
Megatron smirked.  
  
****  
  
Thrustol waited until most of the crowd surrounding Waspinator had moved on before approaching him. In fact he waited until Waspinator seemed to be sleeping.  
  
He approached the sleeping Transformer, but stopped when Waspinator suddenly raised his hand in a 'Stop' jesture.  
  
"Stop, do not bother, Waspinator now. Waspinator has plans!"  
  
"How did you."Thrustol tried to ask.  
  
"Compound eyes not just good for seeing visions. I have to go now, to be where the vision said."  
  
Waspinator jumped up and transformed into a techno organic wasp, which in turn transformed into a jet, and flew off across the planet.  
  
Thrustol looked dumbfounded at the area of sky where the Predicon had once been, but then had to move quickly. The vines and weeds all around him had begun to grow rapidly and wrap themselves around him.  
  
He screamed and ran. as if there was anywhere he could run to.  
  
To be continued. 


	7. Hints of introductions

Minicon Dawn Part 7 By isoner  
  
The usual disclaimers go here.  
  
To Cheetor, the visions always came in dreams. This one was no different.  
  
He saw Cybertron, and something was wrong with it. It was too far out of balance, and the planet was screaming out in pain as a result. The techno organic growth had died off at the poles of the planet, leaving them shining silver, while the rest of the planet was more than overgrown, growth so thick that it would become unlivable.  
  
Then Cheetor could see Botanica's pained face superimposed over the planet.  
  
He knew it was the present.  
  
The vision changed to a bizarre representation of the many pasts.  
  
He found himself standing on a ridge looking down at a procession of transformers, all past leaders, walking down a dark tunnel to the bright light of the Matrix. Another transformer was watching from another ridge on the far side, that Cheetor did not exactly recognize. but he knew it was a new form of Waspinator.  
  
Waspinator jumped up and down and waved at Cheetor in a way that seemed decidedly irreverent for a vision. "Yoo-Hoo," Waspinator called, "Cat bot better come home soon."  
  
Then both Waspinator and Cheetor looked down at the procession of dead Transformers, finally he began to recognize some of them. The red silver and blue Optimus Prime who had been able to Transform into an old 20th Century semi truck. He was followed by the red and orange Rodimus Prime. He was followed by Fortress, then Ginrai, and. someone was missing. Where was the legendary swordsman, Star Saber? And why was he only seeing Autobot leaders? After the break in the line walked Fire Convoy. In turn he also saw Leo Convoy, and Big Convoy. a convoy of Convoys. his mind thought with a laugh. Then came Optimus Primal at the end of the line.  
  
Primal. paused and looked up at Cheetor, and then Waspinator. He smiled at them. Cheetor then looked to the matrix light that his old commander was approaching, and discovered that Primal was already there, part of it. They all were.  
  
The vision shifted again, and Cheetor and Waspinator were standing together overlooking a new scene. A possible future. Two groups of techno organic Cybertronians working and living in living housing, and in between them a colony of Minicons.  
  
"So there is a future for them on our world." Cheetor said, as his vision came to an end.  
  
**** Something's up with Megatron, Thrust thought as he made his way through the asteroid field. He just wasn't acting right lately, and he seemed somehow sleazier than he had been before, and now he had been sent on some fool's errand.  
  
He wasn't even looking for a Minicon, but for some rumor or legend that Megatron knew about, although Thrust had never heard it. He thought Megatron was making it up, maybe as a way to isolate and eliminate him. only there was no way Megatron could know about the plans he had been making.  
  
But then, he saw something that couldn't exist naturally. He wasn't even really sure what it was. it was larger than any of the asteroids he had seen, and appeared to be entirely artificial.  
  
If anything it was a mass of roads and tunnels. Apparently this was the place, and he would have to navigate this three dimensional labyrinth in order to fulfill Megatron's orders. And he didn't want to upset Megatron, at least not yet.  
  
He accelerated towards the strange asteroid, and flew into it along the roads.  
  
"Welcome to my Zone Defense!" a voice said, "Welcome to your Doom!"  
  
"Slag." Thrust said.  
  
****  
  
Cheetor awoke to find that Optimus Prime had already arrived. He showed the larger transformer their shuttle, and apologized for not having as equally impressive a tour as the one the Autobots had given them.  
  
They did not revive their discussion on the morals of using Minicons as weapons. Instead they went directly to business. Optimus Prime gave his speech about their Duty to their race, and their self respect. About how they had to act for their own freedom because relying on others to fight for them would just be another form of slavery.  
  
Then Cheetor spoke, describing his world, and his vision of a future where Minicon and Cybertronian lived together in a world of mutual co-existence.  
  
As before, some of the Minicons chose to go with Optimus Prime and his Autobots, while most chose to stick with the Maximals that had saved and protected them for so long.  
  
As before neither Cheetor nor Optimus Prime was completely pleased with the results.  
  
"Well, Prime," Cheetor said, "I guess we are done here for now. We will take this group to our Cybertron, and then we will come back to see if any more want to go with us."  
  
"I hope that when you return we can work together against the Decepticons." Prime said, "But there is one thing you should know before you leave."  
  
"What is it, Prime?" Cheetor asked.  
  
"You mentioned before that you had been on this planet in the past. Based on that, I had Alexis do a search, and I found some things that you might find interesting," Prime said.  
  
The small orange bird/camera, Laserbeak was perched on Optimus' sholder, and began projecting Alexis' results for Cheetor to see.  
  
Cheetor remained silent for a few moments.  
  
Finally Cheetor found his voice again. "Well, guys, I'm afraid that we will be staying on Earth for a few more days."  
  
"Aww man. We're never gonna get out of here," Rattrap said.  
  
****  
  
On Cybertron, Fixit looked up at the rarely heard sound of explosions, as they ripped through the growth outside of Botanica's home. He remained determined to do what he could for the helpless Botanica. Botanica was still in a fetal position, holding her head and trying to repress the pain of an entire planet.  
  
The sound of a jet passed over head, and then circled around, the explosions began again.  
  
Fixit through his body over Botanica's as the ceiling blasted into a hundred different directions.  
  
Debris bounced off his back, and the jet circled back around once more.  
  
He looked up into the now visible sky. It was a black jet with green wings, unlike any he had ever seen before, but as the jet came close it shifted and changed, the nose cone disappearing, and the wings separating so that soon it was not a jet but a giant wasp that closed upon them.  
  
The Wasp drew closer, hovering directly above them, then changed and shifted once more.  
  
Waspinator fell to the ground, and stood before them, looking surprisingly regal.  
  
He didn't say a word to either the stunned Fixit or Botanica. Silently he walked over, and lifted Botanica into his arms.  
  
Keeping her close, Waspinator again took to the sky, flying out of sight, and leaving Fixit behind, feeling very stunned.  
  
****  
  
Earth's Moon.  
  
"What are you doing, Megatron?" Starscream asked, the being who now possessed Megatron's body, keeping up the pretense in case anyone thought to overhear them.  
  
"What do you mean?" The ghost of Starscream asked, using Megatron's mouth and voice.  
  
"I mean sending Thrust out on some fools errand."  
  
"Oh. that. I'm gathering my forces, and calling in some old friends."  
  
"But what about the Minicons?"  
  
"The Minicons are nothing but bargaining pieces. You fools should have defeated the Autobots years ago with or without them, all you needed was competent leadership, and I shall provide that, my lieutenant."  
  
"The Minicons are nothing, are they? Obviously you have never tried one."  
  
"What do you mean?"  
  
"Leader-One. come over hear and powerlink to Megatron!"  
  
The minicon crept out of the shadows, transformed and powerlinked to Megatron's arm.  
  
Starscream's Ghost, within Megatron's body felt a new surge of power like none he had ever experienced before. With power like this. Megatron, or Galvatron, or Shockwave or any of the other Decepticons or Autobots could have stood in his way to ultimate power. With enough, he imagined he would be a match for Unicron himself, he thought with the grim satisfaction that one can only have in hindsight, secure in the knowledge that all of the listed foes were already dead. He laughed.  
  
"You are right. Organize a scouting party at once."  
  
****  
  
Battered, barely functional, and in fact, beaten. Thrust collapsed to the ground. "I'm impressed," the voice said. "You got through my zone defence, survived my long bombs, and made it all the way into my inzone. but you are still going to die. It doesn't matter how many people Galvatron sends after me, he will never have his revenge against me!"  
  
"Wait!" Thrust said in desperation. " I don't know any Galvatron!"  
  
"You don't know /Galvatron/? How is that possible?" The voice asked, then as if talking to itself it added, "How many years has it been?"  
  
"I was sent by my leader, Megatron. He wants you to join our forces!"  
  
"Megatron?" The tan and purple transformer asked. "Very well, I will go with you. For I have many questions for your leader."  
  
****  
  
In the museum that had attracted so much of Alexis' attention, and Cheetor's dread, a group of scientists, accompanied by government agents studied the freshly re-categorized artifacts. Among them were an ancient segmented tribal horn, that it turned out was actually made from an advanced metal alloy well beyond the ability of stone age cavemen to make. Another metal item found near the horn was a ceremonial drum shaped like a hollowed out demon's head.  
  
But the items that were receiving the most attention from the researchers, as well as the most of Cheetor's dread, were two humanoid fossils. In some ways they appeared to be fossilized monsters, one definitely had claws or pincers while the other seemed to have upside down wings.  
  
The most remarkable thing about the two fossils however was discovered by accident. While cleaning them, an assistant accidentally chipped away too much stone, damaging the fossil, but revealing a metal frame beneath that was like new.  
  
On the wall behind them were posted some of the governments most classified information, as blueprint schematics and other information on the old Autobots, Bumblebee and Seaspray were available for reference. They weren't sure yet, but they strongly suspected that the ancient fossils were somehow related.  
  
To be continued. 


	8. resurections

Minicon Dawn 8  
  
Usual disclaimers, I still don't own any rights to these characters.  
  
Note on Continuity. When I first started this story it was a simple continuity G1, BW, BM and Armada. You may have noticed that from at least the last chapter if not before I have since expanded it to include ALL existing TF cartoons. In order of occurrence in my new timeline G1, Headmasters (don't ask, I haven't figured out how both versions of Headmasters could have happened yet.), Masterforce, Victory, Zone, RID, Beast Wars, Beast Wars 2 (takes place at the same time as BW), Beast Wars Neo (takes place between BW and their arrival on Cybertron for BM), Beast Machines, and from another Cybertron, Armada which represents the present. If TF:Universe should prove to be a big thing, then I can easily account for it as well (I think). I am still trying to decide if the Botcon Comics should apply in this continuity, as that would affect any Tigertron and Airrazor revivals. Either way the events in Armada take place a LONG time after 2010. maybe 2610.  
  
Part 8:  
  
Resurections  
  
Cybertron.  
  
Waspinator carried Botanica high into the skies of Cybertron, looking at her from time to time to make sure she was relatively all right. For her part the shock of her sudden abduction had dulled the intense pain she had been feeling into a major migraine. She held on to Waspinator for dear life as they traveled high, and fast across the landscape of Cybertron.  
  
She didn't even know where she was, exactly any more, although she had the feeling they were traveling towards one of the poles.  
  
The pain was still constant. It was her pain. Cybertron's pain. She and the world had become too close of late, and her desire to push her abilities with the new Techno Organic plant life, had been too much.  
  
Waspinator began to descend.  
  
She had gone too far too quickly, and lost control. It had been too much for the planet to bare. It had been too much for her, and both were now in pain, and she no longer knew how to stop it.  
  
She had wanted to fulfill Primals dream of a green Cybertron. She had wanted to prove Megatron wrong and take this petty revenge on him for the death of her crew. She had wanted to use her skills to house the millions of restored Transformers and teach them to use their new abilities.  
  
Instead it had all gone wrong, the plants under her guidance had gone wild, destroying what little housing there was, and driving many Transformers to hate what they had now become.  
  
It was all her fault.  
  
Finally Waspinator found the area he had been looking for and gently landed, still holding Botanica in his arms, not letting her touch the ground. He tilted his head looking at her, trying to think of the best way to say something, but not quite finding it.  
  
"Waspinator sorry," he said. "This may sting a little."  
  
He laid her down on the ground.  
  
For the first time since the Reformatting, she was touching bare metal. The psychic shock of it was like clearing the cobwebs from her mind with a steel rod. She inhaled sharply, and the world once again came into focus within her mind.  
  
All across Cybertron the rapidly growing plants suddenly stopped, and began to recede. They did not go away completely, but shrank back to tolerable levels so that the Transformers across the planet were no longer being forced out of their homes by the undergrowth.  
  
It was an event put down by many as a miracle. Those of Cheetor's staff tried to take credit for it in order to bolster their waning authority. Gigatron tried to claim credit to support his own ends. No one knew the truth.  
  
"Thank you. Waspinator?" Botanica said with gratitude. "You have put me back in balance. Ill know better next time, to let things happen slowly and naturally."  
  
Waspinator knew that in his new roll he should say something truly cosmic to her, but for some reason nothing came to him. And the last thing he wanted was to remind her that he was the suppressed mind within the Vehicon Thrust. Instead he just shrugged and flew away, leaving her to wonder just how in the inferno she was supposed to get back home.  
  
Botanica sighed and began to walk.  
  
****  
  
Earth's Moon:  
  
Demolisher pointed out to space and shouted, "Shockwave has returned, Megatron."  
  
Megatron looked up at the approaching space battleship and leaned in close to Starscream. "I thought you said his name was Tidalwave?"  
  
"It is," Starscream replied, then realized that Megatron didn't understand why Demolisher had called him by the wrong name. "Don't worry, you'll get use to it." Or at least that is what he kept telling himself.  
  
Tidalwave transformed and stood before Megatron. "I could not find anyone by the name Octain."  
  
Galvatron must have caught up with him after all, it seemed. "Very well. Return to your duties." Megatron said, then again leaned to whisper to Starscream. "Doesn't he have any personality at all?"  
  
"No. but he has a lot of firepower, and transforms into armor for you, so a personality would really get in the way."  
  
"I see. I'm beginning to like him a lot better now," Megatron said with a smirk.  
  
Demolisher shouted again, "Thrust is coming in, and hes got someone with him!"  
  
"Ahh. One of my warriors has met with success, at least," Megatron said.  
  
The two jets, the black with green trim Thrust, followed by another who was purple and tan flew in low, and transformed into their robot modes just before they reached Megatron and Starscream.  
  
"This is Megatron." Thrust told his companion.  
  
"Your not the Megatron I remember," the other said.  
  
"Demolisher, Thrust, leave the room. I intend to persuade our guest into coming out of retirement."  
  
Demolisher grumbled but left the room, followed by Thrust. But Thrust hung back at the door. There was no way he was going to be edged out by some newcomer. He stopped to listen.  
  
"Blitzwing." Megatron said, his voice raising a few octaves until it sounded like an annoying half screech, "I'm shocked you don't recognize me!"  
  
The pruple and tan Tranformer took a step back in shock. "St-starscream?? How?"  
  
Both Starscreams laughed, then Megatron continued. "Oh, my old friend. Let me tell you about everything that happened while you were in retirement. See you went into hiding from Galvatron, but he forgot all about you when Octane also betrayed him."  
  
"But. didn't he kill you?" Blitzwing asked.  
  
"I'm getting to that part."  
  
****  
  
A bar at the hind end of space:  
  
The Rusty Scraplette. the bar of choice for Mining Mechanoids, and robots of ill repute and has-beens. It was was filled with the fowl smell of burning oil and half digested smelt. The only thing in the place dirtier than the energon food was the tables and floors, but most of the clientele didn't go there for the food, but for the atmosphere, such as it was. The best place in the galaxy to kill someone/thing in front of an audience and not have any witnesses. A deactivated mechanoid was propped up in the corner, it had expired the previous year, but no one had yet gotten around to disposing of it.  
  
One of the few working appliances in the place was an old Junkion brand TV mounted above the bar, that had until recently only been able to show 1000 year old Earth programmes, but someone had gotten around to installing a relay that allowed it to get current Earth programming instead of waiting for the signals to travel the thousand years it took them to get that far out into space naturally.  
  
"I still cant believe they quit showing reruns of GI Jack," Axer said, looking up at the news report on the TV.  
  
"You and your cartoons," his friend Zero replied. "You'll find something else to watch. What about that Digimon show?"  
  
"No reruns of that one anymore either."  
  
"That does suck then."  
  
The TV showed the basic white male in a suit and tie, reading news off of off screen cue cards. In the right corner behind the man was an Autobot symbol.  
  
"That's odd," Zero said, finally glancing up at the screen. "Hey, J.O., turn the sound up a bit."  
  
In the shadows a large form rustled around and the sound to the TV raised up into the audible levels. "Reports keep coming in from people who say they have seen large robots who can transform into vehicles. Such reports are the stuff of history, but they are again becoming common. Are these nothing more than 'Elvis sightings' or have the Transformers broken the century old truce and-"  
  
A half full bottle of liquid energon-oil smashed the TV screen to pieces.  
  
Axer and Zero ducked from the shock of the subject of their attention's sudden demise, and turned to see who had taken it on themselves to destroy the one good thing about the bar.  
  
It was a smaller mechanoid, a red torso with gold accents, and white arms legs and head, with a silver face. He was small, a Micromaster by Transformer standards. Without a word he stood up and walked out of the bar.  
  
"Why you." Axer began, with every intention to follow the smaller mechanoid out to teach him a new brand of manners. He was stopped by the solid grip of Zero on his shoulder, holding him back.  
  
"Why? Whats with him?" Axer demanded.  
  
"Cause hes one of them," Zero replied. "You know how they say that if you don't learn to bend, you'll break?"  
  
"Yeah."  
  
"Well, he broke. A long time ago."  
  
Outside, the small transformer hurried to his plane, and climbed into the cockpit.  
  
****  
  
Earth:  
  
"Uh. Thanks for comin out here with me, Alexis," Rattrap said. "I don't think I could have found it without help."  
  
"Its no problem, Rattrap," the young human girl said. "Actually if you hadn't asked me to help you look for it I never would have known it existed. They don't really cover that area of history in school. And I don't mind helping you. We both want what's best for the Minicons. Those that don't want to fight should be able to go to a world where they wont have to. Was this really a city? The Guys will be sorry they missed this."  
  
"Yeah. second oldest Autobot construction on your planet. It use to be larger, but the Metroplex portion left with the rest of the Autobots."  
  
"Why did they leave?" Alexis asked.  
  
"I don't know, but they didn't all leave. A few stayed behind to watch for Decepticons, but only ones who could pass as human."  
  
The two of them were making good time riding on two of the Street Team Minicons, but the sheer scope of the old Autobot City made it seem like forever.  
  
"You mean they could transform into humans, like you said you could once transform into a organic looking rat?"  
  
"Not like that, it was a lot more primitive. It was more like an organic shell that they used to pretend to be human."  
  
"Ok," Alexis said, still not really understanding.  
  
"Yeah, but the last battle was a really nasty one so they all left the planet too, but we eventually came back and formed better relations. We had a Zone base here for a while."  
  
"What's a Zone Base?"  
  
"Uhhh.. Well, it was made up of transforming attack modules for Transformers built to my size, only before they figured out how to give us smaller Transformers all the power of the big ones. A strength 10 rating now is just as good as a strength 10 rating then, you see."  
  
She didn't, but Rattrap didn't know how to explain it any better.  
  
"Anyway, things got bad again. We signed a piece of paper and left, and quarantined this world never to return."  
  
"And now you are here." She said, pointing out the contradiction.  
  
'Hey, that first time wasn't our fault, we followed Megatron. and this time it was a distress call."  
  
"You said this was the second oldest site? What is the first?"  
  
"The Ark," Rattrap said, and looked around to get his bearings. "Ok, if that is Look Out Point, then the ark is a few dozen miles that way," he said, pointing. "That is the space ship they originally crashed in. Its kind a buried under a volcano now."  
  
They continued to walk around the Autobot City, its once golden metal plates had gone dingy gray from combat and years of neglect.  
  
"I had heard so many stories about this place from family members," Rattrap said as they walked along long deserted roads and hallways. Many of them did not look safe. "I just had to see it for myself."  
  
The scooter that was carrying Alexis suddenly jerked to a stop, prompting Alexis to get off and ask it what the matter was.  
  
It transformed and beeped franticly, then ran down a hallway as fast as the Minicon could.  
  
Rattrap and Alexis exchanged startled glances then followed at a run.  
  
They rounded a corner and passed through a door that hung open, a large Transformer sized door.  
  
"What is it? What did you find?" Alexis asked the minicon, who was looking up at a table that it couldn't quite reach the top of.  
  
Then Rattrap realized the Minicon wasn't really interested in the Table, but in a wall safe behind it.  
  
Rattrap looked around at the various debris, and set up something of a jump, then rolled back to get a running start, and took off as fast as his wheeled robot mode would carry him. He hit his ramp, and flew into the air, landing on the table and skidding to a stop just before hitting the wall. He pulled out his gun and fired on the ancient Autobot safe.  
  
The door to the safe swung wide, revealing a variety of data disks within, and to their surprise one green Minicon plate.  
  
Rattrap grabbed the plate and handed it down to Alexis before helping himself to as many of the Data Disks as he could carry, resolving to come back for the rest at another time. The title of the top Data Disk caught his attention.  
  
'Evaluation Of Alien Plate for Optimus Prime as prepared by Wheeljack and Preceptor.'  
  
"Ill be a monkey's uncle," Rattrap said. "Optimus Prime knew about these Minicon plates too!"  
  
"Of course he does." Alexis said, not understanding.  
  
"Sorry," Rattrap said. "Different Optimus Prime."  
  
****  
  
"I don't approve of this course of action," Optimus Prime radioed Cheetor.  
  
"Don't worry, we have to do it this way so no one gets hurt, especially the scientists. You don't want them waking those two up," Cheetor said.  
  
"What if they do wake them up," Silverbolt asked his leader.  
  
"Then we take them with us back to Cybertron."  
  
"They are Predicons, Cheetor. You cant reason with them!" Silverbolt said, not noticing the harsh look Black Arachnia just flashed him.  
  
"They are Cybertronian, just like us!" Cheetor replied with a heated whisper. "That war is over, we just have to help them understand that. But personally I hope they stay in stasis lock until we can get them someplace safe."  
  
Silverbolt scowled.  
  
"Just find a hiding place, we will move to take back the bodies once the Scientists leave," Cheetor said, "or if the fools actually manage to activate them."  
  
Silverbolt and Black Arachnia each nodded then disappeared to find their own places of hiding within the Museum. The heated argument that was waiting to occur between them would wait a little while longer.  
  
Cheetor himself decided that he wanted to keep a more direct view of the events, as he transformed into his cheetah form and made for a ventilation duct. It was a tight fit, but he managed to navigate between the walls until he found a duct that afforded him a view of the research the scientists were performing on the Cybertronian bodies.  
  
The scientists were slowly chipping away the stone and rock from the metal of the bodies. Cheetor was genuinely surprised to see a small sample of stabilized Energon Crystal resting on the table. It wasn't much, but it could be just enough to activate them if used properly.  
  
Whoever these humans were, they seemed to have a great deal of knowledge of Transformers, although he suspected that they had little to no knowledge about the merging of organic components into Transformers.  
  
Still, he couldn't imagine what could have happened to leave the two transformers in such a state.  
  
Then Cheetor noticed a change in the bodies, one that the scientists didn't notice right away, although when they did they backed off quickly.  
  
The exposed metal, now much more of it visible now than when they saw them the previous day, began to liquefy.  
  
They were coming back online.  
  
Cheetor prepared to spring into action.  
  
The bodies writhed in agony, shaking loose the last of their rock prisons. The larger one apparently remembered its old biosample, and immediately began to recreate itself in his previous form. Already his exoskeleton was forming, and a tail was forming.  
  
One of the scientists rushed over and rang the alarm. Soon troops and other specialists would arrive and attempt to subdue the newly reactivated Transformers.  
  
The other, smaller one was having a much harder time, it was clearly trying to re-grow his leathery hide, and wings. Apparently it was either more badly damaged than the other, or it no longer had enough raw materials to work with to regenerate its old form. It fell to the ground. Soon it would stop functioning all together and its spark would extinguish.  
  
Cheetor would not allow that.  
  
He charged through the wall vent with a clatter that shocked the scientists almost as much as the sudden appearance of a robotic cheetah. He growled at them, giving them the moment they needed to gather their wits enough to run for their lives.  
  
The celing tiles at the corner of the room collapsed downward and Black Arachnia was standing in the dust. "I should have known you would be too impatient to wait." She said.  
  
"Look after that one," Cheetor said, pointing towards Scorpnok who would soon be fully recovered.  
  
He looked down helplessly at the other form, desperately trying to think of anything he could do to save its life.  
  
The door opened again, allowing Silverbolt to enter. "I got the impression from the panicked crowd that someone made a premature move?"  
  
"Shut up, Silverbolt," Cheetor said.  
  
Black Arachnia shot a web to seal the doorway, then shouted to Silverbolt "Help me hold him!"  
  
Silverbolt joined Black Arachnia in holding Scorpnok down.  
  
"Don't struggle, Scorpnok!" Black Arachnia said, "We're here to help you."  
  
Cheetor closed his eyes, and began looking for his center. that connection with the allspark that Optimus had used so easily. He found it there. Right where Optimus always told him it would be.  
  
He reached towards the smaller form, and began the process of Reformatting the smaller Transformer. The smaller Transformer grew, leathery hide and liquid metal became techno organic metal. Soon, Terrorsaur lived once more.  
  
"A Lava bath never killed any Transformer!" Scorpnok declared. "Who are you guys? Did Megatron send you?"  
  
"I had wondered what happened to you guys," Cheetor said.  
  
"Ugh. Introductions later, we need to get out of here!" Black Arachnia said.  
  
"Right," agreed Cheetor, then activated his radio. "Op--," he began, then changed his mind, so far the Preds didn't recognize them, so he shouldn't use a name that might make them suspicious. "Prime, you ready to extract us?"  
  
"Affirmative, Cheetor."  
  
"Wait, Cheetor?" Terrorsaur began, but Black Arachnia began pushing both him and Scorpnok towards the window.  
  
"Scorp, care to take care of the window for us?"  
  
The Transformer laughed and raised his claw. Click, click. A missile shattered the window, and a portion of the wall.  
  
The five of them ran for the waiting semi truck, ignoring the hale of bullets being fired at them by soldiers that had appeared on the roof of the museum building.  
  
****  
  
Cybertron:  
  
Gigatron looked down from the window of his tower at the masses below. The sudden receding of the plant life had been a minor setback to his plans, but everything was still proceeding smoothly. Things would just progress a little slower now as he would have to use other means to undermine the absent leader's authority.  
  
"Look at them down there, Dinobot. Currying around like insecticon drones. Cybertronians are such disgusting creatures."  
  
"Begging your pardon," Dinobot said, "but aren't we Cybertronians too?"  
  
"A minor technicality. The fact that we think and relish in the thought of carefully orchestrated Destruction to create a better tomorrow sets us well above those. Cybertrons."  
  
"I see. so if they are Cybertrons, what then are we? Predicon? Decepticon? Sharkticon? Stunticon?"  
  
"No. None of the old names, Dinobot. We need something new that does not already reek with the stench of past failures or ill reputations. Instead we shall be something that speaks of our destructive nature."  
  
"Distructicons? Sounds rather camp, not befitting a Warrior."  
  
"No, I think its time we did away with -icons. We shall simply be Destrons, and when we make our presence known, this world and every other will shake with fear!" 


	9. Minicon Hunt

Usual disclaimers apply... I do not own the rights to the G1 Transformers, Armada Transformers, or the guy from TF Victory. Also... Stealth and his minicon Bombshell belong to Shadowhawk, and are included at his request.  
  
Part 9  
  
Minicon Hunt  
  
Thrust sat in a contemplative silence. Megatron was being possessed by some other being... some other Starscream no less. That could be useful, maybe if he could take advantage of the situation, or if things turned against him, he could gain favor with the original Megatron by freeing him from the snare of his mental captor. So many possibilities, what should he do?  
  
"You finally figured it out," a voice behind him said. "You know that Megatron isn't who he pretends to be."  
  
Thrust turned, and to his surprise saw Sideways standing behind him. Only Sideways wasn't really there, he was just looking at his reflection? He was beginning to learn not to be surprised by anything Sideways did.  
  
"Yeah. I figured it out. He's being possessed by some ghost," Thrust said.  
  
"And what are you going to do about it?"  
  
"I-I don't know yet."  
  
Sideways seemed to smile. This could lead to all sorts of Chaos, he thought, and that was what HE wanted, but was it really what /he/ wanted? Could it be that he no longer knew on which side he wanted to belong?  
  
"I can help you," Sideways said.  
  
Thrust was skeptical, "How, and what's in it for you?"  
  
"I can give you a device that will cure Megatron... if and when you want to use it. As for what's in it for me? I just want to help, after all, I'm on your side."  
  
"THRUST!" Megatron's voice boomed throughout the base. "Get in here, we are holding a strategy session!"  
  
Megatron had gathered all of them around a large central map. Thrust joined Megatron, Starscream, Cyclonus, Wheeljack, Demolisher, Tidalwave, and the new addition; the ancient Blitzwing. The central map showed an area that Thrust couldn't quite identify.  
  
"The goal of this next operation is to gather as many Minicons as possible," Megatron said.  
  
"Have you located some new Minicons, Megatron?" Demolisher asked.  
  
Thrust could see the desire to hit Demolisher for his stupidity pass across Megatron's face. "No. Why should we go to all the effort of locating new Minicons just to have to race the Autobots to get to it first? And all that wasted energon for a single Minicon, why should we do that when the Autobots and those accursed Maximals have already done so much work and have collected such a large number in one place."  
  
"We're going to attack the Autobot's base?" Cyclonus asked.  
  
"I thought about that, but I think the collection possessed by the Maximals is a much more tempting target. After all, how much resistance can a bunch of quasi organic Micro Masters put up?"  
  
"Uh..." Demolisher started, "You do remember our last run in with them, don't you Megatron?"  
  
Megatron shot Demolisher a look that convinced him to remain quiet for the rest of the meeting.  
  
"I'm sure we would love to attack them," Thrust said, "if we knew where they were."  
  
"About that," Megatron said, "Allow me to introduce your new third in command... Terrorsaur!"  
  
Hearing his expected introduction, the Techno Organic Terrorsaur entered the room and flew up to the map table. "The Maximals, and all their Minicons, are in a shuttle hidden right here," Terrorsaur said while pointing to a point on the map.  
  
"Any more questions?" Megatron asked.  
  
****  
  
Scorpnok had no idea what had become of Terrorsaur, nor did he really care. He was too deep in thought as to his own future.  
  
His entire life had been devoted to Megatron, and Megatron was gone. He had seen the Datatracks, and knew them to be true. There may be other Megatrons but his Megatron was gone along with Primal. Should he take Cheetor up on his offer to join?  
  
Maybe. It wasn't like there was anything else for him, and Cybertron was now at peace. He and Terrorsaur were the last of the Predicons. An extinct race.  
  
He knew that Terrorsaur would never be able to fit in, he was all about power, and without the ability to scheme and backstab he would go mad, or become a mercenary on another world. Maybe he should do that too?  
  
No. Cybertron was his home. Even if Megatron was gone, he still had that.  
  
Yes, he would stay with the Maximals and go home. Once he was there he would decide what to do next. Work on organic research maybe. He had learned a lot with his Bio-toxins.  
  
And besides, Cybertron was now a world at peace.  
  
****  
  
Cybertron:  
  
Armed Transformers, hurrying to get to wherever they were going, passed Waspinator. The gunfire in the distance told him everything he needed to know; yet another vision had come true.  
  
Despite his warnings, Cheetor had not returned home in time.  
  
The cue had begun.  
  
The next Great War had begun.  
  
He knew he would be safe. The Cybertrons would not involve innocents... he thought. And the Destrons would want him alive.  
  
Botanica would also be safe for the time being, even though the Destron's wanted her dead. She would still be walking back from the pole where he left her, well away from the assassination squads that were expecting to catch her unawares. She would learn what was going on before they found her, and she would be able to go into hiding.  
  
Waspinator briefly wondered if it was this chaotic at the start of every great war, but he didn't want to ask. He was afraid they would show him.  
  
****  
  
The Rusty Scrapplette Bar:  
  
The Minicon Bombshell staggered out of the reclamation room, full of regret that he had not heeded warnings to bring his own glass when he came to this bar. He held his head, and thought for a moment that he would need to rush back into the reclamation room, which he really did not want to do, it was even nastier than the rest of the bar, if that could be believed.  
  
He didn't know how long he had been in that room attending to his business, but it had apparently been for too long as the Transformer he had been looking after was no longer sitting at the table where he had left him.  
  
Beeping up a storm of swear words that no one could understand, the little Minicon rushed out of the bar to find his companion.  
  
He returned a short while later, his companion, the ancient, and full sized Transformer Stealth at his side.  
  
Stealth looked at the empty table, then at the bar, and finally at the broken TV and the grumbling patrons.  
  
It didn't take long to calculate what must have happened.  
  
"What was on the screen when he broke it?" Stealth demanded.  
  
He was ignored.  
  
Angry, Stealth grabbed the nearest mechanoid, "Tell me, what was on the screen when he broke it!"  
  
Axer was shocked that this strange Transformer whom he had never seen before had the nerve to make such demands of his friend Zero. Well, just one thing to do for it. "Hey, J.O. we got us a situation out here," he called.  
  
In the depths of the kitchen there came a rumbling, and everyone stopped what they were doing to stare as J.O., large and misshapen, slowly walked out of the kitchen.  
  
J.O. was easily the second largest mechanoid that Stealth had ever seen. His jaw dropped and he forgot everything he was doing. Misshapen as he was, it was painfully obvious that J.O. was not to be trifled with.  
  
"Don't bother the customer," J.O. said.  
  
Stealth dropped Zero, and continued to stare.  
  
"You want information, buy me New TV."  
  
"But I didn't..."  
  
J.O. stepped forward. "Buy new TV."  
  
Stealth deposited more than enough credits onto the bar, and they quickly disappeared into the maw of J.O.'s huge hand.  
  
"Some news show from earth talking bout returning Autobots," J.O. said, then shuffled back into the kitchen.  
  
Stealth took a slow step back, but didn't even wait until he had left the bar before transforming into his stealth jet mode to take off for Earth.  
  
Bombshell was slow to follow, and hard pressed to keep up.  
  
****  
  
The red and white plane drifted in orbit around Earth. He had reached the Earth in record time, which was good. He needed to set things back right. His mistakes must never be repeated by anyone.  
  
Now all he had to do was sit tight and wait for the Autobots and Decepticons to start fighting so he could find them. He knew it wouldn't take long.  
  
It never did before.  
  
****  
  
Cheetor was worried.  
  
Terrorsaur had disappeared, Silverbolt seemed to have some sort of grudge against him, half the Autobots had a grudge against him, the Minicons were getting anxious to leave, Rattrap was late getting back from wherever he had gotten to with the human, and he couldn't shake the feeling that something, somewhere was terribly wrong.  
  
Then it began. He could see the target in the distance, flying high, but defiantly in their direction. It opened fire.  
  
Explosions erupted behind their shuttle, causing Cheetor and the rest to duck the flying debris.  
  
No point in fighting this alone if they didn't have to, he thought, because he severely doubted this was a lone Decepticon. "Nightscream... Call Autobots and ask for assistance!"  
  
"You got it!" Nightscream called, as he ducked into the shuttle.  
  
"And get the shields up!" Black Arachnia called after him.  
  
Soon the shimmering line of the shield appeared around the shuttle, and the Minicons all rushed to hide under the relative safety of the shield. Some of them transformed into their combat modes, prepared to make a last stand if that was what it took.  
  
More explosions ripped the ground around them, but Cheetor no longer ducked. It had become obvious that they were not going to hit them. The shots were just intended to spook them into panicking or giving up.  
  
"Well guys, lets get ready for a fight." Cheetor said, "Any one have an idea of how many we are facing?"  
  
"Ill find out!"  
  
Cheetor turned, surprised that it was Scorpnok who had just spoken. His claw was held out and a Cyber bee was proudly displayed.  
  
The Bee took off into the sky, heading directly for the approaching armada.  
  
After a few moments, Scorpnok spoke again, "It looks like about 9 of them, and they all have at least one Minicon... and Megatron is carrying some sort of sword. And Terrorsaur is with them too.  
  
"Thanks, Scorpnok," Cheetor said. At least he knew what happened to Terrorsaur now, and he hated the fact that it proved Silverbolt's point about them, but then Scorp's help proved his own.  
  
"They are on their way," Nightscream called, rushing back out of the shuttle.  
  
"There is no point in waiting, when we can take the battle to them," Silverbolt said.  
  
"Yes there is," Cheetor disagreed. "That is 9 cons up there, with Minicons, and only two of us can fly. You should wait until they get closer so we can provide support."  
  
Silverbolt was obviously not pleased with Cheetor's call, but saw enough wisdom in it to not fly off on his own anyway.  
  
"Air forces move in, and don't hit the Minicons!" Megatron ordered, while landing on the ground, well out of range of the Maximal's weapons.  
  
Wheeljack and Demolisher landed next to him, while Starscream, Thrust, Cyclonus, Terrorsaur, Blitzwing, and Tidalwave continued on, strafing the Maximals and moving off before they had a chance to counter attack.  
  
"All right, guys." Cheetor said. "Its time to take the fight to them."  
  
Instantly Silverbolt leapt straight up into the air, flinging his explosive feathers in every direction, frustrating all the Decepticons rather than damaging any one of them.  
  
Click-click. Scorpnok's missiles fired, streaking after Cyclonus who dodged franticly trying to evade the missiles that matched his every move.  
  
Nightscream spotted Thrust, and took off after him, looking to continue their previous fight.  
  
Black Arachnia fired her web, snagging the tail section of Terrorsaur, and allowing him to lift her into the air.  
  
Cheetor transformed into cheetah mode and took off at full speed, charging at Megatron. Explosions erupted on either side of him as Tidalwave opened fire on the fast moving cat, chasing him as best he could.  
  
Seeking to help his lover, Silverbolt transformed and pursued after Terrorsaur.  
  
Starscream flew low over Scorpnok to distract him, but rather than be distracted, the Predicon simply changed targets. He leapt up with a yell, grabbing the passing jet in his claws, and sank his stinger into the metal hide of the plane. Starscream began loosing altitude as the cyber venom took effect.  
  
Thrust had learned a lot from his previous fight, and did not give Nightscream clear shot. If anything he nearly ran the smaller transformer into his own shuttle.  
  
Blitzwing flew in between her and Terrorsaur, snagging her web. "Ok," She thought, "Ill just change targets," and she continued to climb the web, until she reached Blitzwing. Blitzwing screamed in pain, as her talons injected him with cyber venom. Just as gracefully, Black Arachnia jumped off, landing in a crouch on the ground.  
  
Wheeljack charged in to distract or deflect Cheetor from Megatron, but instead the Cheetah leapt over the car, and continued without slowing. Demolisher rotated to get a shot at him, but Cheetor was moving way too quickly to be targeted. At last he was almost on top of Megatron, and Tidalwave was almost on top of him. Cheetor, still at full speed, pounced, landed on Demolisher, bounced off, transforming, landed on Megatron, and leapt high into the air, swinging his swords, scoring several hits on Tidalwave.  
  
Tidalwave began to fall apart. For the briefest of milliseconds, Cheetor thought he had beaten him, but the parts transformed and attached to Megatron as armor.  
  
"That's a new trick," Cheetor said.  
  
"I was about to say the same to you," Megatron said, raising the Star Saber high.  
  
Cheetor raised his own swords to block the blow, but that was not the attack Megatron had been planning. Cheetor was blasted back by waist mounted turret cannon.  
  
Terrorsaur plowed into the ground, the pain from the two dozen energon feathers sticking into him finally too much for him to bare. Once on the ground, however he transformed into his robot mode, and began shooting back at Silverbolt.  
  
Starscream, just beginning to recover from his dose of cyber venom, transformed, and slowly stood. As more of his systems came back online, he drew his sword and began looking for a target.  
  
Blitzwing, recovered more efficiently than the others, and transformed into his tank mode, his turret already looking for a target.  
  
Silverbolt landed next to Black Arachnia, they stood back to back, while waiting to decide whom they would attack next.  
  
Thrust tried to shake Nightscream off of his tail by flying low once again, but this time Nightscream took advantage of it by using his sonic scream to strafe several Wheeljack and Megatron, although he didn't do much if any damage to either of them in that quick pass.  
  
"Decepticons!" Megatron commanded, "Reform at my position. We will go in on foot, with massive firepower too pave the way to the Minicons."  
  
The other Decepticons hurried to Megatron's side. Thrust couldn't help thinking that he liked this new Megatron's tactical thinking. It was just a matter of time before they totally overwhelmed these "Maximals."  
  
"Not so fast, Megatron," a voice said, "Your not getting your hands on those Minicons."  
  
Megatron winced. Such a lame line, it could only be...  
  
"Optimus Prime," Cheetor called, "Glad you made it."  
  
The rest of the Autobots were to either side of Prime, Red Alert, Hot Shot, Scavenger, Jetfire, Smokescreen, Blurr, and Sideswipe.  
  
"Do you think we are just going to warp out of here simply because we have a larger fight on our hands?" Megatron said. "Well, think again... Demolisher! Blitzwing!"  
  
At once, Megatron, Demolisher and Blitzwing all fired their turret weapons, all targeting the same point on Optimus Prime's chest.  
  
Optimus Prime staggered back, experiencing an unparalleled pain, clutching the smoking hole at the center of his chest. Red Alert was instantly at his side, while an outraged Hot Shot powerlinked with his Minicon and fired his cannon.  
  
Hot Shot's attack bounced harmlessly off of Megatron's armor.  
  
"You are absolutely no..." Megatron began, but before he could finish he was bracketed by fire from a strafing jet he had never seen before.  
  
The jet turned, and attacked again, this time causing the Maximals and Minicons to scatter.  
  
The jet made a third pass, this time targeting Optimus Prime and the Autobots, before climbing back towards space.  
  
The jet did not climb very high before the cockpit opened and a small red and white Micro Master sized transformer jumped out.  
  
"Brain Set!"  
  
The front part of the jet disconnected and unfolded into a robot, its chest portion opening downward, unleashing a rainbow of lights which guided the Micro Master into it. The chest closed over the Micro Master, which was transforming into the face and brain of the larger robot. The transformation did not end there. The aft portion of the jet also began to unfold, and the robot began to fold back upon itself. Another set of rainbow colored connections lit up, as what had been the robot docked with the aft section of the plane forming an even larger robot, with Autobot symbols boldly painted on the shoulders. A second head on the back of the robot folded up and over the original head.  
  
It landed on both feet, and reached back pulling out a sword.  
  
With a battle yell, this new robot charged at the Decepticons.  
  
Starscream brought up his sword to defend, while Megatron brought his down to attack the newcomer, but the newcomer blocked both swords with his own.  
  
He kicked out, knocking Starscream away, then swung his sword, knocking the Star Saber free of Megatron's grasp, and catching it himself.  
  
The newcomer could feel the power of the Star Saber. Power that he could use, even if he could not feed off of it the way these other transformers apparently could. He returned his own sword to the compartment on his back, and held the Star Saber at the ready.  
  
"He has the Star Saber!" Starscream yelled.  
  
The newcomer shook his head. "I am Star Saber."  
  
To be continued... 


	10. Ready for departure

Minicon Dawn 10

Note: Just because my Buffy story will never be completed, doesn't mean my other stories wont be. It just takes time as muses come and go. Although it has been a while since I last worked on this one.

I still do not own Transformers or any of the characters contained within this fanfic.

Chapter 10: Departure

To Starscream, the Decepticons, Optimus Prime and the Autobots the Star Saber is one of three ultimate weapons. Composed of three Minicons joined together forming a sword of immense power, if joined with the other two weapons could result in the destruction or saving of the Universe.

To Cheetor and his Maximals and Predicons Star Saber was one of the great Autobot leaders from the time of the Great Wars. He was known as a Hero and a Swordsman, always thinking of others. He was given leadership shortly before the technical destruction of Genrai and resolved the conflict between the Autobots and Deathsarus's Decepticons before turning power over to Dai Atlas at the start of the Zodiac crisis. The Zodiac Crisis, once it fully came to the attention of the humans led to the treaty banishing all Transformers from Earth. At least until Minicons from a different Cybertron sent out their distress call.

The one thing that every transformer present knew was that Star Saber was wielding the Star Saber like and expert, and had apparently gone quite insane.

He was a red and white blurr of rage and motion as he attacked every transformer in sight, although he focused his main attention on those transformers who were holding swords, and was able to ignore totally the energy fire Demolisher, Rattrap, Hot Shot and others directed against him. Cheetor, Starscream, the ancient Blitzwing and the other sword wielding transformers were barely holding their own against him. Each of them alone would not have stood a chance against the vengeful Star Saber, but with his attention divided among all of them, the battle raged.

From his hidden vantage point, Sideways observed the delicious chaos. Autobot verses Autobots, Maximal, Decepticon, and Predicon alike with the fate of the Minicons hanging in the blance, and with them the fate of the universe depended. Wouldn't Unicron be delighted to find that he now had two separate Cybertrons to destroy? Still I didn't know the location of Cheetor's planet yet, but surely it was just a matter of time.

Optimus Prime transformed his trailer into a Minicon combat platform, and all the near by minicons climbed aboard, firing the platforms guns at Star Saber, as their self proclaimed protectors seemed unable to do anything against this newest menace.

Cheetor was too busy defending himself to think, although he did wish he could hit like Primal could. One punch from him was usually enough to take a bot offline for a least a nano-click.

The conflict with the Decepticons all but forgotten, Rattrap transformed into beast mode and scampered behind some rocks, to try to sort this recent development out. "Man, this ain't right, he's suppose to be one of the good guys."

"What do you mean, Rattrap?" Hot Shot called out, "Who is this guy?"

"None of you should be here!" Star Saber cried with each sword strike, speaking the final word with a blow that sent Blitzwing's sword flying. "Even you Decepticons agreed," he swung the Star Saber that partly imbedded itself in Megatron's Tidal Wave armor.

The Ghost within Megatron smirked. Finally the Autobot fool had made a mistake. Megatron jerked the damaged piece of armor to the side, pulling the sword from Star Sabers grasp. The three Minicons that made up the sword fell to the ground in stasis lock, but Megatrons sense of triumph was short lived as Star Saber had already redrawn his own sword, knocked Terrasaur aside and was moving against the Autobot Hot Shot.

Star Sabers attack on Hot Shot was abruptly halted as Optimus Prime charged in and began grappling with Star Saber. "We never agreed to anything. If anyone doesn't belong here, its you," Optimus Prime shouted at him.

The two Autobot leaders stood, locked in a combat decided by a strain of gears and hydraulics, Star Saber's combat skills were minimized in the changed form of combat.

"He is right," Cheetor shouted. "I'm the only one here violating that ancient accord."

Optimus Prime and Star Saber struggled against and away from each other, trying to gain the upper hand.

"That's not possible," Star Saber replied. "You will all either leave or die."

"Well, at least you got him talking," Rattrap said.

Cheetor thought, so far the Decepticons were still too off balance to renew their attacks. The Decepticons wont be leaving Earth until they had captured every last Minicon. The Autobot's wouldn't leave until they had either driven off the Decepticons or rescued every last Minicon. The Minicons wanted to leave, either to his Cybertron or Prime's or some other world entirely. And he was only here in response to a distress call, although he had already gotten enough Minicon refugees to fill the ship and was ready for its return to Cybertron. The situation had done nothing but escalate since he had arrived, and the newest arrival, Star Saber wasn't listening to reason, and did not know that Prime and his Autobots were from a Cybertron with a totally different history than his. Cheetor didn't expect this battle was the best chance to explain it to him.

"Nightscream, Silverbolt; you two see to the Decepticons. Black Arachnia and Sorpnok, would you respectfully disable Star Saber. Remember, he is a BrainMaster."

"As you wish, Cheetor," Silverbolt said as he and Nightscream took to the sky.

"I never even dreamed of an opportunity liked this," Scorpnok laughed while he charged at the huge Autobot, cyber venom primed in his tail, and a ready cyber-bee in his claw.

"Get over yourself," Black Arachnia said under her voice while watching Scorpnok, then transformed into spider mode. Projecting a strand of webbing to Star Sabers back she began climbing up towards her prey.

A sonic scream gouged out a small chasm separating the Decepticons from the rest of the battle, while a hail of energy feathers further distracted them.

"Decepticons regroup," Megatron called, gathering his troops. The Maximals and Autobots didn't want to bother with him, then that was just the opportunity he needed to reload, and think of a different plan. With the Maximals full attention focused on Star Saber, that meant the helpless Minicons in their shuttle were unguarded and ripe for the taking, but he would need to make sure to maintain a presence or they would think he was up to something. "Blitzwing and Terrasaur, I have special task for you."

"The thing about Brain Masters," Scorpnok explained to hear himself talk, "is that the body is nothing but a barely feeling shell." He raised up a claw and fired a Cyber Bee that immediately latched onto Star Saber and began rewiring the body functions to itself. "So, its an easy matter to disable that. The only way to really hurt one is to go for the face."

"Got it covered, Shell Head," Black Arachnia said, transforming back into robot mode, performing a summersault from Star Sabers back over his head and sinking her fangs directly into Star Sabers face, delivering a strong dose of cyber venom.

Star Saber screamed out in pain, and his body convulsed, not as immobilized as Scorpnok would have hoped. His head and face lifted up and back, revealing Star Sabers true head and face, which had escaped the worst of Black Arachnia's attack.

Click-click… Two missiles launched from Scorpnok's claw impacted on the back of Star Sabers newly revealed head.

The larger Star Saber sagged in stasis lock, Optimus Prime's hold the only thing holding him up.

Setting the large transformer down gently, Optimus Prime stood, flanked by Hot Shot, Scavenger, Red Alert and the rest of the Autobots and Maximals, all staring down Megatron, Thrust, Starscream, and the other Decepticons, none noticing the absence of Blitzwing or Terrasaur.

"Its over, Megatron," Optimus Prime said, raising his weapon level with the Decepticon's head. "Surrender your Minicons and stand back."

"Very well, Prime. You definitely have us at a tactical disadvantage," Megatron said, the uncharacteristic smirk never leaving his face. He could stand to loose Leader-1 and the few other Minicons he and his troops had on them, as Blitzwing and Terrasaur had snuck around to the Maximal's ship and were currently loading up on two to three times more Minicons than he had now. He dropped Leader-1 unceremoniously to the ground.

Thrust could hold himself no longer. While this possessed Megatron had a gift for tactics, surrender was definitely out of the question. He pulled out the strange device Sideways had given him, special for this situation. He had no idea what it was or exactly how it worked, none of the Decepticons did.

Cheetor recognized the device instantly, and his spark ran cold. Rattrap interrupted his thoughts with the same one, "Hey isn't that a…"

Thrust plunged the spark extractor into Megatron where it latched on the spark of Starscream. "No, you fool!" Megatron shouted as Starscream's ghost was ripped out of his body.

All of his foes were vanquished, destroyed as many times over as he desired. Optimus Prime and Primals heads were mounted proudly on either arm of his throne, while Shockwave, Megatron, and Galvatron all bowed before him awaiting his mercy or lack of it. Even Unicron cowed before him.

Megatron enjoyed the false reality created for him as much as he studied the inaccuracies. He mentally mapped the stars above, and pieced together what he could of this world's history although it was difficult as there was no logical order to the visions and dreams. He could not identify the planet, but he was able to identify enough of the stars to be able to find the planet if it did indeed exist in the real world. But still, he tired of this make believe world, power was nothing if it wasn't real… and so far his every attempt to break free of this fantasy had failed.

In the skies above Cybertron, the cowering head of Unicron did something it hadn't done since he found himself in this world. It smiled… and suddenly Megatron doubled over in agonizing pain as the world was ripped away revealing another.

Leader-1 was standing at his feet, not quite sure if he should stay where he is or run away, and his troops were to either side of him, and in front of him Optimus Prime and all of his Autobots. He reached down and picked Leader-1 up. "Decepticons back to base."

With a blurring, Megatron and the other Decepticons phased out.

Cheetor repressed a stab of frustrating rage… just when he thought things would be resolved, the cons got away, and it would all begin again soon. Still, Optimus Prime was equipped to handle things here… and he needed to get the Minicons to safety. He turned back to their shuttle.

Blitzwing, his arms filled with Minicons, and Terrasaur who was marching a Minicon prisoner of his own. The first thing they noticed as they began heading back was Cheetor staring at them, then they looked and saw the empty space where the Decepticons had been, and finally at each other. "Aw, slag," they said as one, then set their Minicons down and raised their arms up in surrender.

Waspinator rejoined Botanica shortly before she got within range of the capital. For a while she resisted and resented his presence, not for his part in the Beast Wars of which she was unaware, but because of the time he spent as Thrust. Her distrust did not last long, although she doubted she would ever actually like him.

He did help her regain control over herself and the cybertronian plant life, and more than that he saved her from a new danger she was unaware even existed. It was when she was nearing the capital, unaware that Cheetor's fragile government had totally failed in his absence. She was on the verge of walking into an ambush when Waspinator came flying in his jet mode, transforming to robot mode and hiding her in the shadows.

It wasn't long before she learned that she was being hunted by the Destrons as one of the leaders of the Cybertrons old regime. She didn't really understand why Waspinator was also being hunted, they seemed to think he was some kind of religious figure.

Some how the two of them had formed some sort of strange partnership, each helping the other stay one step ahead of the Destron forces. Waspinator seemed to be able to stay one step ahead of them most of the time, while Botanica could sense and occasionally create secret passages and hideouts. Part of their fugitive status reminded Botanica of hiding from Vehicons, only now she was a much more active participant.

Waspinator, for his part was not overly worried. This chaos was momentary. Cheetor would soon return with more, and more would follow him until finally balance would be achieved. If history had taught the Transformers anything over the eons, it was that mearly two factions were not enough to create a blance.

From his tower, Gigatron surveyed all as the puppet master. Everything was going according to plan. Soon his troops would restore order to the planet, and if Cheetor and the other Maximals returned to Cybertron before then, or after, it was already too late. Cybertron was his, and that was just the beginning.

And over his shoulder, Gigatron's lieutenant, Dinobot also watched, but he did not necessarily like what he saw.


End file.
